Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Ensuring the bucks stop here

By EDWARD D. MURPHY, Staff Writer
Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram

Consumers' minds are so attuned to chains that many assume Coffee by Design is a national operation.

"People were asking where the headquarters were and we said, 'It's here. You're standing in it,' " said Mary Allen Lindemann, who owns the local company, which has three coffee shops and a wholesale operation. "We assumed that everyone knew we were locally owned."

An effort to encourage people to buy locally is aiming not only at boosting sales at local shops like Coffee by Design, but also at easing any identity questions. The campaign features "Buy Local, Keep Portland Independent" decals and posters for the 200 or so participating businesses.

The buy local effort has been in the works for more than a year and officially kicked off July 3, the day before Independence Day. It's gearing up again, Lindemann said, to keep consumers thinking locally when it comes time to buy holiday gifts.

Stuart Gerson, a co-owner of Longfellow Books just off Monument Square, is backing the effort heartily. Decals and posters are on every window, a buy local display dominates a corner spot and another is adjacent to a cash register inside.

Gerson said the holidays are a particularly apt time to remind consumers to help support local merchants because it's a time for people to gather together.

"That's what makes our community," he said of local stores and businesses. "It's only businesses that are locally owned and doing business locally that care about the community."

Gerson said his support of the community extends beyond the shelves of his store. He not only supports local authors and publishers with book readings and signings, he also buys office supplies locally instead of from a chain.

"Am I paying more or less? I don't know -- I pay fair," he said.

Lindemann said that buying locally makes economic sense. Like Gerson's bookstore, local merchants tend to buy from other local merchants, and their profits stay home. She said studies indicate that 45 cents out of the revenue dollar stays nearby with locally owned businesses, compared to 14 cents for a national chain's store.

That appeals to people's rational side, she said, while the idea of doing business with a neighbor or friend appeals to the emotional side.

"For some people, it's the fact that they want independent businesses, and for others, it's economic development," Lindemann said.

For her, Lindemann said, "I'm not only building the brand of Coffee by Design, I'm building the brand of downtown Portland and that includes a lot of locally owned businesses."

Portland seems to be well along among the 50 or so cities and towns with formal buy local campaigns, said Stacy Mitchell. Mitchell, a Portland resident, is senior researcher with the New Rules Project of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and author of "Big Box Swindle," an account of the economic and social impact of big national retailers.

"There's a sense here of what's at stake," she said of Portland. "People here understand what it is that we lose when local businesses close."

She said parts of Portland have proved to be difficult for retail chains to crack, including the retailing center of the Old Port. But the pressure among chains for a downtown location will likely increase, she said, because the city is ringed by suburbs with large national retailers and "those kind of companies are increasingly interested in coming into downtowns. I'm very nervous (about) where we're headed."

Despite that, Mitchell said there seems to be a backlash nationally against some of the largest retailers, noting ordinances around the country that severely restrict where big box retailers can locate and pressure on the chains to increase pay and improve benefits for workers.

"I'm feeling pretty optimistic nationally," Mitchell said. "I think there's a growing sense out there about what's at stake."

© 2006 Portland Press-Herald

 

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