I was reading about some local policy changes intended to make running a small business easier and that got me thinking. I go to restaurants and ethnic food stores which are usually small businesses, and maybe some of the gas stations I use are small businesses too. However, everything else I buy comes from big-box stores or the internet. These have replaced a lot of small businesses, but how is it that there are any little shops left at all? Sometimes I walk into a corner store because I don’t want to go all the way to the big box store or wait for delivery but the prices are so much higher (often by over a hundred percent) that I walk right out again unless I need something very urgently.
I’m not making a moral judgement here. I just don’t know how the economics work out.
Exactly like you - restaurants and grocery I can do local small business. Also services, haircut and such, I don’t use chain places. And I try to pay very local people for anything we get done to the house, the pets, the yard.
But the “corner convenience store” that has the household stuff is Walgreens, there isn’t a local equivalent nearby and yes buying stuff 'on the ground ’ sometimes costs so very much more than ordering online.