‘Shop local’ efforts go green, bilingual

Biz community finds new ways to keep holiday shopping close to home|

Promoting the economic and ecological importance of shopping locally is hardly new, admits Patricia Shults, executive director of the Sonoma Valley Chamber of Commerce.

“I would say there isn’t anyone who doesn’t know they should shop locally,” she concedes, “but it’s important to keep reminding people that we really do have all the goods and services we need, right here at home.”

This year, extra efforts are being made to translate that message – literally, by translating it into Spanish – as the homegrown Sonoma business sector prepares for the official launch of the holiday shopping season this Thanksgiving weekend. As part of the Chamber’s expanded yearlong “Local Spoke Here” program, all of the program’s downloadable window signs, counter placards and bag stuffers are now available in Spanish as well as English.

The bilingual suggestion was made at the Nov. 12 meeting of the Boyes Hot Springs-area community group, the Sonoma Springs Alliance, at which the Chamber’s Economic Development Partnership Program Manager, Laurie Decker, presented a vision for the shop-local marketing effort, and encouraged local businesses to make use of the signs and placards to promote and emphasize how shopping within the Valley supports the local economy. Decker’s presentation was taken to heart by meeting attendees, several of whom suggested that such marketing materials should be made available in bilingual versions.

Less than a week later, the change was made.

“We’ve now expanded all of our efforts to the Spanish-speaking community as well,” Shults says, noting that most of the outreach materials are now available in Spanish, emblazoned with the message, Aqui Hablamos Local.

“There are now folks at La Luz Center,” she adds, “who have volunteered to go out and distribute the translated materials to local businesses.”

Around the country, the Thanksgiving weekend is seen as perhaps the most important shopping period of the year, and local civic and business leaders are hoping the Chamber’s efforts will discourage some of the non-local and internet spending that has been slowly eroding local economies. To support the “shop local” effort, the Sonoma City Council, at its Nov. 16 meeting, issued a proclamation declaring “Shop Sonoma Days” – those being the period between the post-Thanksgiving “Black Friday (Nov. 27 this year) to what’s known as “Cyber Monday” (Nov. 30).

“It’s all about raising awareness,” says Shults, “and things like the Council’s proclamation mean that people are thinking and talking about this issue – and that’s incredibly important.”

In addition to the various signs, posters and “bag stuffers” – paper inserts describing the benefits of shopping close to home – downloadable from the Chamber’s website, it also features other suggestions, including the use of hashtags in online correspondence, specifically encouraging the use of #ShopSonoma and #ShopTheSprings.

Shults admits that, while such efforts are vital for keeping the public aware of the consequences of each shopping decision, it’s very much an uphill battle.

“Realistically, it’s not an easy idea to sell, and it’s very much a national problem,” she says. “Over the last year, I’ve heard over and over from local businesses saying that non-local shopping, especially online shopping, has negatively impacted their business.”

In addition to spreading awareness that each dollar spent at a local business results in sales taxes that support fire, police and park services, the Chamber has made efforts to call attention to the ecological advantages of shopping locally.

“Driving further means more auto emissions,” she says, adding that shopping online, requiring shipping from abroad on trucks and planes, also equates to more automotive and commercial aviation activity. That’s a point that isn’t intuitively obvious to some online shoppers, who assume they are saving on gas by shopping from their living rooms.

It’s a point local businessman Robert Wilson, owner of Sonoma Old School skate shop, has been trying to make ever since Amazon and other online retailers began to take a serious bite out skateboard revenues a few years ago.

“It’s tough,” he acknowledges. “I get by on fumes and dreams here, because so many of my former customers think they are getting a deal or saving themselves some effort by doing their Christmas shopping in a single evening while having a glass of wine at home in front of the computer.”

Wilson says consumers are unaware of the impact online shopping is having on the local economy.

“And if they think they’re helping the environment by not driving downtown to shop,” adds Wilson, “well let me tell you – the UPS truck blazing around town is giving five times the emissions that (consumers) would if they drove, or rode their bike, to any store in the Valley.”

Another factor few consider, Wilson points out, is that most of the locally owned businesses in the Valley regularly donate to local charities and educational organizations.

“Does Amazon donate to Sonoma Valley schools?” Wilson asks. “I don’t think so. But we do. I donate to every school that asks, because it’s important to me, and to most of the local businesses in the Valley, to support the schools, and all kinds of other organizations.”

Adds Wilson: “We’re in the business of being part of our community. I wish everyone in the community believed they were in the business of supporting us.”

Ironically, while efforts are being made to keep locals from leaving the Valley to shop, the tourist economy of the area is dependent on encouraging non-locals to do just that, leaving their own communities to spend their dollars in Sonoma.

“It is ironic,” Shults allows. “We get a lot of visitors who love to come here to shop, but our own do not tend to shop here as much as we’d like. Every community in the county, and in the state, in the country, is struggling in their own ways to keep dollars local.”

That said, for Shults, the message is black and white, and also green.

“When you support local business, you support your local community, and you help the environment as well,” says Shults.

And that’s a message that’s worth spreading, in any language.

Email David at david.templeton@sonomanews.com.

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