Why shopping locally may be a good decision this holiday season

Supply chain issues are affecting the holiday shopping season, and while locally owned small businesses aren’t immune to supply-chain problems, they’ve managed to fare better than larger, national chains. We talked about it with Kimber Lanning, CEO of Local First Arizona.

“It’s going to be a very good season for small and independent businesses and the reason is that many of them are in a position that they can compete because they weren’t sourcing goods from the other side of the world…so there are many, many businesses that are sourcing from either near by communities, regionally, or even in the U.S. that aren’t really caught up in the massive supply chain issues,” Lanning said.

She encouraged the importance of our local economy. And when it comes to holiday shopping, Lanning noted that there are so many businesses with handmade gifts that are accessible and unique.

Lanning said it’s possible to buy completely local this holiday season if you put your mind to it.

“We have wonderful festivals, we have opportunities to go to markets where you can access all sorts of artists and goods but in addition, really recognizing another way that we can contribute this holiday season is being patient and understanding when things change,” Lanning said.

She expressed that she recently went to a restaurant and received her food in a different type of container than she was used to and immediately knew it was due to supply chain issues.

Lanning said that companies that are really feeling the pinch of supply chain issues are those that are waiting on manufactured goods coming from different countries and they’re having to become creative.