Gallatin Valley Independent Business Alliance celebrates Independents Week- American Independent Business Alliance AMIBA

July 2, 2004

Another way to look at independence

By Marjorie Smith

How are you celebrating Independence Day? While we should be in the midst of a national discussion about the true nature of patriotism, I suppose we can be forgiven for just kicking back for a day or two and enjoying the simple statements made by fireworks against the skies of the summer night.

However, something I intend to do is pay some attention to folks who are asking us to use the word "independent" in a slightly different context. The GVIBA (Gallatin Valley Independent Business Alliance) has dubbed this first week of July "Independent Week" in hopes of raising awareness of the benefits we gain by patronizing locally owned businesses. This is a cause we can all support without ever parading down Main Street or writing a letter to the editor.

Love it or loathe it, shopping is an unavoidable part of life. For many of us, it's simply a matter of getting stuff we've gotta have, like food or shoes or a hammer and nails. But GVIBA's campaign reminds us that each purchase we make is a tiny part of that monster that dominates our lives: The Economy.

Each time we choose where to spend our hard-earned bucks, we cast a tiny vote for the kind of world we want to live in. GVIBA hopes to persuade us that price should not be the only consideration when we go to buy the stuff we need.

If slightly lower prices (which is sometimes only the perception, not the reality) lead us to a Big Box store, most of our hard-earned cash -- minus the minimal portion paid in local wages -- will quickly clear the mountains ringing our valley and wing its way to the corporate headquarters of WalMart or Home Depot or Target. In addition to shareholder profits, GVIBA explains, the Big Boxes use some of our money to pay lawyers, accountants, printers, advertising agencies -- none of whom live in this valley.

When I buy something at a locally owned business, however, not only does the sales clerk and the store manager get a share of my money, but local attorneys, accountants, advertising agencies and printers get some -- as well as the local owner who almost certainly spends a significant portion of his or her profits in the community -- and usually donates generously to local non-profits.

As the folks at GVIBA will be happy to tell you (check out their Web site at www.gviba.org), more of your money stays in the community longer when you spend it at a locally owned business. And the longer money recycles through our community, the more we'll see of it and its effects.

I consistently find that it's easier to find someone to help me in a locally owned business -- members of the sales staff may have been working there for years. Try this experiment: Ask for galvanized buckets at Home Depot, Murdoch's and Owenhouse. Where to you suppose it will be obvious that the salesperson -- once you run one down -- has never heard the word "galvanized" before?

Then there is the shopping experience. Say I need a ream of paper. I could drive out to a shopping plaza, walk across a few acres of parking lot, go into a big box office supply store, find my way through the aisles, select a ream of paper, wait in line at the checkout counter, and repeat my journey home. Or I could stroll a few blocks, enjoying Main Street in its lovely summer dress, enter the time machine known as Phillips Book Store, find my paper with the help of a salesperson, pocket a scrawled receipt (but only if I want one) and walk home. I really don't care if the paper costs a little more -- buying it has been a pleasant experience, not a chore.

GVIBA disappeared from the newspapers and perhaps our consciousness a few months ago after a flap arose when the City Commission awarded them some of the funds assessed from Home Depot and Wal-Mart to mitigate their impact upon local businesses. I thought it seemed a pretty logical way to go about mitigation -- give some money to an organization mounting a buy local campaign. But this is Bozeman , so of course there was a big flap.

I don't have a lot of money to spend. I like the idea that when I do spend it, I cast a vote for the kind of community I want to live in -- one with lots of small, unique businesses to balance the homogenized Everywhere at Every Mall.

I think I'll spend the rest of the summer celebrating independence.

Marjorie Smith is a Bozeman writer and editor and former member of the U.S. Foreign Service.

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