Fact: If half the employed population spends $50 total at three different locally owned shops each month, it would generate $42.6 billion in revenue. Going further, for every $100 spent in locally owned stores $68 goes back to the community (only $43 is returned from spending at a national chain and nothing comes from online shopping). What it all comes down to is dollars and cents, and no one understands this better than local retail consultant and speaker Cinda Baxter. That’s why Baxter has developed
The 3/50 Project in March of this year—it’s a marketing campaign that urges shoppers to visit three independently owned shops each month and spend $50 total between the three (Not at each one—unless you want to!).
Since Baxter launched the campaign in March, it has spread like wildfire across the country and taken on supporters and participants in nearly every state. Shop owners across Minnesota are handing out flyers with receipts and hanging signs in their shop windows. And despite The 3/50 Project’s success, Baxter insists it’s just getting started. “Every day, I received multiple emails from all types of brick and mortar business owners with stories about long-lost customers who have returned, or of new customers purchasing items they admit they would have been picked up at big chains before they learned of The 3/50 Project,” says Baxter.
Midwest Home, too, has a buy local initiative. It’s our searchable “
Made In Minnesota” database with more than 300 Minnesota shops that make all manner of building supplies—from lumber, to sinks, to countertops—right here in the North Star state. Check it out today!
Rachelle Kuehne
