Blackstone Valley Businesses Align Against Chains

By DAVID FISHER/ecoRI News staff

So, you’re trying to “green” up your life. You’ve begun taking shorter showers, turning off unnecessary lights and appliances, taking the bus to work and shopping at farmers’ markets. But where do you buy your paint? Where did you buy your last television?

Most people’s answers to those questions would likely be Home Depot and Best Buy. While these businesses certainly exist in our communities, the profits from those sales almost invariably go out of the state, and in some cases, out of the country.

The Blackstone Valley Independent Business Alliance is aiming to change that.

The alliance of small-business owners was formed about a year and a half ago, to promote buying locally produced and marketed goods. The response from local business owners has been tremendous. In the short time the alliance has been in operation, its ranks have swelled to about 160 local businesses, from general contractors, to farm stands, to hair salons.

Last Wednesday, at the first Blackstone Valley Independent Business Alliance meeting, Jeanne Budnick, president of the alliance and owner of Pepin Lumber in Woonsocket, stressed buying local products as a way to keep income in our communities. “For every dollar spent in a local store,” she said, “68 cents stays in the local economy.”

She also pointed to the tax revenue generated for the state and municipalities when your dollar is spent at an independently owned retailer or service provider, and not at a franchise or box store. In many instances, larger chain retailers skirt their state and federal taxes by having their corporate headquarters in another state or country.

The featured speakers were John Gregory, of the Northern Rhode Island Chamber of Commerce, Mark Hayward, assistant director of the Rhode Island branch of the Small Business Administration, and Tom Ward, publisher of The Valley Breeze.

The alliance has started an aggressive buy-local campaign called “Keep the Green in the Valley,” and is beginning to work on implementing a discount card that can be used at participating local stores. During last year’s holiday season, the group organized a local “Shop Hop,” where if you visited five participating retailers, you received a 10 percent discount at the fifth stop.

It also has aligned itself with nationwide initiatives such as the “3/50 Project” and “10% Shift.” The 3/50 Project asks people which three independent businesses they would miss in their communities if they went out of business, and claims that if an extra $50 were spent in local businesses, by just half of the employed people in the United States, that would generate $42.6 billion in revenue that stays in our communities.

The 10% Shift is a campaign by the New England Local Business Forum that asks consumers to increase, by 10 percent, their purchases at local, independently owned businesses, thereby keeping more tax and business revenue local.

“The larger box stores, in most cases, don’t have the product knowledge or personalized service that’s available at our store,” said Nellie Chomka, owner of the Vose True Value hardware store in Woonsocket.

“Spending your money at a local store builds community ties, employs people from the community,” said her husband, Chet, “and a large part of the tax revenue in the state comes from small businesses.”

They’re both right. Small-business employees represent more than 90 percent of the workforce in Rhode Island, and in smaller stores, the staff, more often than not, have a depth of knowledge about their products that you can’t find at larger retailers.

You might assume that larger stores inherently offer better prices and quicker delivery, but Kyle Klockars, co-owner of Village Paints in North Smithfield, challenges that assumption.

“We beat Lowe’s prices on carpeting jobs every time,” he said. “We also have a quicker turnaround time on special orders because we don’t have to wait for a tractor trailer to be full before an order is shipped. Why should you have to wait for ten more people to order carpet before you can get yours?”

Don Gagnon, owner of Wicked Wisdom Web Designs and member of the alliance’s steering committee, said, “Most big businesses are willing to make money in a community, but rarely are they involved in the community further than that.”

He added that, “In a state whose population and income has remained relatively static for the last ten years, further retail development is unnecessary.”

Some employees of alliance members were in attendance. Amanda Goddard and Emilie Weiss, stylists at Creative Impressions Hair Salon in North Smithfield, both said they’ve seen an increase in business since the local purchasing campaign began.

Buying local makes sense on many levels. It fosters a sense of community and keeps money in the local economy.

For more information on the Blackstone Valley Independent Business Alliance, visit buylocalbv.org.