Sign of the Times
In a plaza not too far from our house there is a little pet supply store we purchase our higher end dog food from. An elderly lady owns the store and she has a friend of hers help out at the store when she can’t be there. We have shopped there for approx 7 years and although we may be able to buy our brand of dog food slightly cheaper elsewhere we go there to show our support for small local businesses and also because the ladies are so sweet.
When I went in today to pick up some dog food I noticed that each time I go in the store there are less and less products on the shelf. There are empty spots and where there was once 10 bags of each kind of dog food now there is only one or two. The owner and I started talking about the economy and how difficult things were. Many of her customers had down graded the dog food they buy from the pemium brands she sells to the cheap dog food sold at grocery stores. She said that 2 of her customers had already come back because they found that the cheap dog food was full of fillers and their dogs ate more to get the same nutrition so in the end, the cheap stuff wasn’t as cheap after all. The problem was, most of the people that had left hadn’t figured that out yet.
Personally I would go without something in order to keep my dogs on the food they now eat simply because they are all extremely healthy and well, I don’t want to take a risk of a sick dog. The owner said she wasn’t really making anything at the store anymore and they had cut back on stock drastically simply because she could not afford to keep much stock on hand. I was deeply saddened and hope that she can make it through this economic down turn without closing her store.
I think it is important for people, even in tough times to try to support the little guy. Yes, you may have to pay a buck or two more for something and money is tight, but sometimes it pays in the long run to cut money from something else in an effort to keep the little guy in business.
Now I may not be able to personally keep this small pet supply store in business, but I have decided that I will make an effort to support local small businesses more, and through my articles and blogs, try to convince others to do the same. If we all make an effort we can save these mom and pop stores, the stores that actually care ab9out you as a customer. Stand up and be counted as a supporter of local business.
