main street | ChangingMedia

Jan 14

When Tech Goes to Main Street

By Robyn Stegman | Social Enterprise, The Thagomizer | 7 Comments

Buying local has for a long time been an act of nostalgia. Only on main streets will you find local book stores still fervently defending the power of the printed word, antique shops allowing you to wander through luxuries of a previous age, and gift shops proudly selling hand crafted trinkets. Buying local in many ways presents itself as the antithesis of online shopping both in community economic impact and in experience. With online sales reaching over a trillion dollars however, perhaps it is time for technology and Main Street to join forces.

IBM’s annual “5 in 5” predictions report outlines five aspects of our lives that will change in the next five years, and gives us a very different perspective of the future of online and local. Instead of a battle of arch-nemeses duking it out for consumer spending, they see the two merging. With mobile technology the customization and variety one gets on Amazon, could be available at a store near you. In fact, IBM predicts in five years time local will beat online.

With the rise of the “Internet of Things,” a term used to describe new technology that embeds internet capable sensors into everyday objects, the power of the web is being used closer and closer to home. For instance, what if all you had to do was push a button on a refrigerator magnet to get your usual order of a large chicken tikka masala delivered straight to your door? Sounds pretty awesome right? It’s not as far fetched as it seems, a pizza company in Dubai has already come up with such a device. Everything in your home could get a virtual makeover in the future. Your closet could someday be able to scan every new item, offer you suggestions for outfits, and connect to local stores to suggest new additions that fit your style. Fridges could track expiration dates, come up with shopping lists based on what you don’t currently have for your favorite recipe, or suggest vegetables for sale at your local farmer’s market that would make delicious meals with what’s in your pantry.

Smart devices not only help us get what we want faster, but also collect valuable data. Data has proved to be a powerful tool for driving sales online and could be a force for change locally. Imagine a system that tracked what you bought at your favorite local shops. While buying a cute dress at a local boutique, a mobile app could recommend other stores in the area that might have dresses similar or suggest a place with matching shoes. An app could take in your measurements and suggest items in their stock that would fit you best. Shopkeepers could also have a keener view of their customers buying habits. In the future they might have an app that recommends new products to keep in stock based on their customer profile.

IBM’s prediction is based on the fact that local stores have something to offer. People do want a personal experience, they want to touch and try on before they buy, and they want the instant gratification of walking out of the store with something new. However technology has made it so much easier for us to get the things we want without going to four stores to try to find it. If IBM is right and you can combine the ease and customization that draws us to shopping online at our local book store, we may indeed see local businesses beat back Amazon.

Nov 19

Five Reasons to Ditch Black Friday

By Robyn Stegman | Social Enterprise, The Thagomizer | 3 Comments

Americans spend over 11 billion dollars on Black Friday each year, mainly at large “big box” retailers like Walmart and Target. Yet a new movement, Small Business Saturday, is trying to get a chunk of that change for local businesses. Started by American Express, Small Business Saturday, drives shoppers away from national chains and down to wonderful shopkeepers on mainstreets across the country. If you are one of the 57% of shoppers who actually find Black Friday enjoyable, here are five reasons to consider waiting a day this year and shopping closer to home instead.

1. Avoid lines, crowds, and homicide: Black Friday, is a holiday so crazy that OSHA has issued safety guidelines for retailers. Anyone who has had the misfortune of shopping on this day of consumerist excess knows that a large percentage of the experience is not actually spent shopping but navigating your way through other shoppers to actually purchase something. Every year we are regaled by tales of people who pepper spray, brawl, even shoot each over ferbies or flat screen TVs. Compare that to fun events like Plaid Friday, an initiative in Oakland, CA that wants to take back the Friday after Thanksgiving to be a time to pleasurably and leisurely shop with friends and neighbors at local stores. Shopping local isn’t just more pleasant, it’s also less likely to get you punched by a woman overly eager for the cut-rate deal on a talking picture frame.

2. Keep money in your community: Research from the American Independent Business Alliance found that “for each dollar you spend at independent businesses returns 3 times more money to your local economy than one spent at a chain.” As this infographic from Small Business Saturday adeptly displays, spending money locally is more likely to return back to you and your community.

3. Find unique gifts: Whether it is a handmade bowl or a fuzzy pairs of socks, local stores are sure to impress everyone on your shopping list. As we’ve seen from numerous examples of big box stores stealing designs from local jewelry or home furnishing makers, local artists are often trend setters, creating beautiful pieces far better then what you’ll find at Target. By shopping local you can give gifts that exhibit your town’s quirk.

4. Find what you need: My number one reason why I shop local every Christmas is because it often saves me so much time. I can walk into my local toy store and say I am looking for a gift for a five year old and I want it to be noisy (I know, their parents will hate me), and I walk out moments later with a wrapped gift that is sure to delight. I have a used bookseller who knows my father loves books about the circus and will save any that come his way for me. Instead of spending time looking from aisle to aisle, store to store trying to find the right gift, I have a team of helpful people working in small businesses who can help me find the gifts I need. Shop keepers at local stores aren’t war-weary cashiers hoping to move you along before the crowd gets too irate while waiting in line. They are generally incredibly helpful and can help you find the perfect gift even if you have no idea what exactly you are looking for.

5. Create jobs: Small local businesses are the largest employers nationally and they are less likely to move somewhere else. Supporting small businesses help them stay in business, hire more people, and create conditions for new entrepreneurs to create new local businesses you’ll surely love. As I wrote in an earlier piece on economic gardening, local businesses are often the best catalysts for community development and growth.

If I’m preaching to the choir then maybe this year is time for you to think about how you convince others to shop local. Get involved with a local business alliance or Main Street campaign to help raise awareness and convince others in the community to make the switch from Black Friday big retailers to Small Business Saturday shops. Year to year sales increase when communities invest in buy local public awareness campaigns. If you don’t have an established organization or are just looking for something small to do then just get a group of your friends to go down to your local shopping district and thank people for buying local. It’s amazing what a small bit of encouragement can do to get people to continue to buy local and ditch Black Friday once and for all.

Jun 03

The Failure of Hipster Trickle Down Theory

By Robyn Stegman | Social Enterprise, The Thagomizer | 4 Comments

Let me start with a disclaimer. I shop local and I believe more people should ditch the big box retailers to support the independent local businesses in their community. I believe in buying local not only because it has a greater positive impact on the economy but because it’s a better experience. I love the used book owner who saves books on the circus for me because he knows I love to find rare books on that topic for gifts for my father. I love one business owner who grabbed me out of the street to sample the latest beer he got in. I adore the quirk, the experiences, the people that you will never find without small, locally owned, independent businesses.

With that off my chest I begin part two of my examination of the Keep Austin Weird campaign and the way Baltimore has led me to examine it with three guiding questions:

Who gets to define weird?
Who benefits from weird?
How can we celebrate a weird economy?

In my last post I looked at the narrow definition of weird celebrated in the “Keep Weird” campaigns. This post will pick up on that thread to look at the effect of that definition.

“Keep Weird” campaigns generally focus on main streets full of small boutique businesses teaming with the young eccentrics. They promote the idea that by keeping these weird places alive the city will thrive. To me, this idea sounds similar to Richard Florida’s failed promise of the creative class. Florida promoted what I’ll call the “Hipster Trickle Down Theory.” Basically in order to save a dying city, you should make it look cool so that you can attract young, college-educated, professionals to your city.

The idea that the hipsters flocking to Detroit, Philadelphia, and even our fair city of Baltimore will bring a new economic renewal has two serious flaws. The first is that like most immigrants, these new residents often form pockets of people just like them, impacting those of their kind more than the city’s natives. This influx generally results in a new suburb, only this time it is in the city limits.

Again, it is this narrow definition of weird that is the downfall of this campaign. “Keep Weird” campaigns often do not recognize wide array of restaurants, stores, and other local businesses found in non-white areas. This specific variety of weird excludes a large part of the urban population. I think it is not a coincidence that the two largest “Weird” campaigns reside in cities with smaller African American populations than the national average. Austin comes in at 8.8 percent and Portland at 6 percent compared to a national average of 12.8%. Instead of being the symbol of inclusivity they claim to be, these campaigns generally celebrate an exclusive vision of what it means to be “Weird.” It is no surprise then that their economic benefits often fail to “trickle down” to the rest of the city.

The second flaw is the economic potential of the creative class and the small businesses they adore currently are not able to replace the powerhouses of industry that came before. While these small local businesses are important (see disclaimer above) they generally represent a small portion of the overall economic ecosystem. Currently what are really keeping those places weird are the businesses that pay people enough to patronize local businesses. Look at any rust belt town and you’ll see that when your industry dies, your local businesses tend to die with it.

Just because a business is local doesn’t mean it has what it takes to succeed. I think we need to stop encouraging people to pay a premium to patronize poor business models. What we should really focus on is how we can provide training, advice, and resources for business owners so that they can compete. One of the reported successes of the Keep Austin Weird campaign was that it stopped a Borders from opening by a local record and book store. I’m about to say what could be interpreted as a terrible capitalist-pig Scroogian statement here (see disclaimer above): if Keep Austin Weird was so wildly successful wouldn’t the local record and bookstore be able to compete against Borders since loyal Austin residents would obviously chose the local store over the corporate entity? If we want local businesses to succeed, I think we need to start talking about why local stores can’t compete and how we can help them beat out the competition.

The businesses on Main Street will not replace the jobs at the steel mill anytime soon. We need a grander vision of the new economy and I think we need to expand from simply “buy local” to growing sustainable and people-friendly local businesses. There are some local markets that businesses can take advantage of. Take Evergreen Cooperative in Cleveland which puts people back to work laundering for the city’s remaining economic powerhouses: the hospitals and universities. However, if we are seeking to beat the corporate behemoths, Austin, Portland, or Baltimore can’t do it alone. We need local businesses that are going to employ more than mom and pop and oftentimes that means selling beyond our city borders. To avoid being hypocritical (although I know hipsters love that state of being), that also means we also need to buy beyond our borders. There’s nothing wrong with this. Given the quality of Maryland wine, I want things produced outside of my community and my guess is you do too.

So I return to the beginning. How do we keep the weird shopkeepers I love in business, celebrate weird beyond Main Street, and strengthen our weird economy? Well folks, tune in next time for my third and final installment that offers a vision for a better way to celebrate weird in our cities.