What Can We Do? A 3/50 Overview

By Heather Larson Poyner

Once upon a time, not long ago, big-box retailers and mall outlets were the good guys. When they first emerged in the 1950s, they boasted convenience and variety. The bigger the store, the lower the price. The larger the consumer support meant even lower prices.
Nowadays, with everyone going “nouveau green,” big-box bashing is all the fashion. So what went wrong with shopping malls and big-box retailers?
Shopping at national retail stores and online is costly to local communities in the long run, according to Cinda Baxter, founder of an online organization dedicated to promoting local spending. Earlier this year Baxter, a Minneapolis resident, posted a blog protesting the loss of local business to big box retailers. “I thought just a few people would see it,” she said in a recent interview. Three hundred fifty emails later, she realized she had touched a nerve. In March, Baxter decided to launch a website called the350project.net. Since then, she reports that the site has had 7,600 unique visitors.
The website sites critical statistics, as well as tips consumers can use to help reverse the tide of lost local businesses.
According to these statistics, only $43 of every $100 spent at a national chain finds its way back to the communities in which
they are located. Of that same $100, $68 comes back to the community in the form of payroll and taxes if spent in independent,
locally owned businesses.
“This is not just the result of the current economy but a problem that has been building for the past 10 years,” Baxter said.
Suggested consumer solutions involve the numbers 3 and 50, for which the website is named. Three: “Visit three independently owned stores you would miss if they were gone. Pick up a little something that will make someone smile.” Fifty: “If just half of the employed population spent $50 in independently owned businesses their purchases would generate more than $42.6 billion in revenue.”
What has been the effect so far? “(The information) is making a difference in stores and neighborhoods,” Baxter said. “We’re hearing store owners say they are getting back long lost customers and customers who say they would have made a big-box purchase if they hadn’t seen the website.”
Given the success so far, Baxter plans to expand her sphere of influence and by the close of 2009 Baxter hopes to launch 3/50
websites in Canada, Australia and the U.K.
We all know that the current economy requires careful allocation of monetary resources. When we spend our money in locally owned stores we give good gifts to our family and our hometown at the same time.