I often see bumpers of Japanese and Korean cars riddled with “Still have a job? Keep buying foreign” and reading websites saying we should concentrate on buying local to support those around us. Not that I disagree with either statement, but I think we can do better. The economy and it’s problems are especially apparent in downtown Toronto where every winter there’s numerous windows riddled with ‘For rent & lease’ signs, this year a significant number more. Yet despite the seemingly more frequent closures there’s a significant number of businesses that are improving.

The downside of this contraction
The downside of an economic contraction like the one we’re undergoing now isn’t that it’s necessarily a bad thing, in fact for the most part it’s great. Inflation tends to decrease and goods return to their affordable pricing, rent tends to remain the same and we go on with life. In this particular instance though a large part of the contraction is directly the result of a housing bubble bursting — things will be slightly different this time around. We haven’t seen rent prices decrease as rapidly as they should have been because people are still locked into mortgages and financing that’s priced higher than the property they own; As a result they need to retain similar pricing structures for rentals as they had prior to the ‘burst’, inflicting significant amounts of pain on their own tenants whose clientbases are dwindling slightly. Many tenants are simply walking away or stepping out when their lease expires instead of continuing onwards — they can’t get their landlords to agree to decrease on the price and the landlords simply can’t afford to reduce it any further.

But, despite all the bad..
Despite the slight squeeze in the economy, a large number of businesses are wielding the recession to their advantage. Winter has always meant downturns and slower growth in most industries but that doesn’t have to be the case — with the internet, local community and a hint of advertising your growth can still steadily increase. I recently read of a coffee shop that had increased their business several thousand percent by using twitter and other ‘community’ driven tools. In this particular case, they allowed their regular clients to make orders online before they’d arrive at the shop. Their business skyrocketed and they began to become a local ‘hub’ for all sorts of events & gatherings. A win-win, for both the clientèle and company owners.

There’s a number of great tools you can use online to really begin to increase your business. A number of them are considered ‘hyperlocal’, that is extremely targeted sites towards local businesses. A few that come to mind are Yelp* and citysearch– and although both are largely geared towards restaurants, shops and brick & mortar places they can still easily be wielded to garner additional traffic.

Online and offline, one and the same.
Something we often forget (myself included) is that online and offline businesses are truly all the same. Although both may differ in physical locations they largely depend on the same variables in order to decide whether they’ll sink or swim. A large part of any business is word of mouth and reputation, both of which are truly dependent (Offline, especially) on your community whether it be nearby or afar. Negative reviews or comments made online or through word-of-mouth can spread like wildfire and damage any business. I’ve learned this firsthand with some of our own clients that weren’t 100% satisfied but even negative comments can be wielded to your benefit. Remember that it’s always best to ask your clients what they think of your services first before they have the opportunity to tell you (negative or positive).

I’ve seen cue cards left about coffee shops asking clients to leave reviews on Yelp* and other locations, and although it may not seem ingenious those extra few comments left on the web could easily bring in thousands of new visitors each month. In colder climates in particular, many people (at least outside city centers) don’t often roam about without a purpose — it’s key to wield online communities and sites to your benefit and get as many content clients to them as possible. We’ve lucked out ourselves in that sites like Hostjury and Gigpark allow our own clientele to leave great reviews about us. Would you believe that 65% of our clientbase has arrived from either of these sites? We wouldn’t either, until we checked our statistics.

No news is bad news, online
Realize that not every review or peep you’ll hear about your company is going to be a positive one, but with some savvy and quick reaction you’ll be able to always explain yourself and your side of the story. The beautiful part about online communities is they often allow you the ability to respond to any negative commentary (or even positive) left about your company. The more people talking about you often garners more business though, whether positive or negative. You can interact on a whole new level where your clients were once inaccessible, you can be ‘real’ to them.

Local, yes. But don’t box yourself in
Remember that you’re not just a provider in your local community, don’t just offer a service or product. Be involved, get involved — and be local. I’m not saying buy local, in fact I believe in helping neighbors near and afar — especially as a company with clients in more than 45 different countries. Remember that as a retailer of any sort you have the ability to expand beyond your local community and start offering services to the world as well — it’s especially easy and there’s no reason for you to solely target your local market. I’ve seen companies go from a single employee to over thirty just by launching an online store and selling toys of all things. Their local targetmarket only had a few thousand consumers but their global reach was millions: They succeeded and there’s millions of other niches that your own products could easily fill as well. As much as you should think, act and be ‘local’, don’t forget there’s a market just within reach that consists of the entire planet. Don’t limit yourself to the few passerbys, sell globally.

If you are considering launching a retail store online, consider a few of the developers below who are happily hosted at Fused Network:
Sage Media
Peapod Studios
16Toads

Global market, local economy. Two birds with one stone.

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