10 REASONS TO BUY LOCAL

1. By shopping locally, we keep money in Northampton. Shopping in Milton Keynes or further afield will take money out of our community that will never come back again, making Milton Keynes richer and Northampton poorer.

2. By visiting local restaurants, instead of heading off to Market Harborough, we meet more local people. Northampton has a vibrant restaurant culture and we put the buzz back in our town that’s very infectious.

3. It’s cheaper to shop locally - no petrol or bus charges. Many local businesses can compete with big chains on price – they just don’t have the massive marketing budget to tell us so!

4. More ranges – if we shop locally, we produce more income for our town, which means that businesses can spend more on stock, which means that we have more choice. Without us taking the initiative, we will have more shops closing, more bankruptcies, less choice, less value and a shabbier place to live.

5. Service – many local shops are owner/managed. This means they have often have more passion for their business than employees in bigger chain stores. We often get better service from someone who is passionate about what they’re doing and they really appreciate our custom.

6. Job creation – if we don’t shop locally, our community suffers. No sales = no shops = no jobs. A sad indictment for our children. We want to keep the younger generation in Northampton, being creative, passionate and enjoying their lives here. It’s up to us to make that happen. It’s a social conscience sort of thing!

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7. Relationships – by choosing local businesses over ‘outsiders’, there is more chance that our relationships with our contacts will actually prosper. How can we form a relationship with an Accountant in Macclesfield, for instance? Macclesfield? Is that near Swindon or Accrington Stanley?

8. Faces – we get to see the same faces that make us smile. We engage in conversation and when we see them again, we have something to talk about. Guinness to bricks we’ll know someone who knows someone else’s brother’s auntie! What’s the point of getting correspondence from a faceless Solicitor in London with extortionate fees, and we are just a number? Who wants to be just a number?

9. We’ll be helping our local businesses. For many tradesmen to service customers outside of Northampton, the cost of travelling means that they are compromised from a profit point of view. The less they earn, the more the prices go up; the more the price goes up, the less we use them. Chicken and egg, hey? You get the idea!

10. Recommendation! By using local services, we become very knowledgeable about our community. That means we become more inquisitive and infinitely more powerful as a voice to make change.

Northampton – our Town, our Responsibility, our Legacy