Large corporations provide customers with convenience and variety, but with heavy portions of unethical economic influence. Kennesaw State students should strive to support local businesses to help them stay afloat amid the large corporations that care more about profit than quality, treat customers as numbers and use their undue influence to control markets.
Due to corporate oligopolies in markets such as coffee shops, small mom-and-pop shops are often driven out of business. Small business owners care about each and every customer that walks through their doors, according to shopify.com. Employees will do everything within their power to ensure customer satisfaction in the hopes that they will be regular customers.
For large corporations such as Starbucks or Amazon, consumers are treated merely as statistics to market toward. By aggressively marketing convenience toward the masses, these companies are able to exist regardless of their inherent quality.
In contrast, the shopping experience is much more personal at a small business.
A small business is financially beneficial to local communities and provides a personal experience for the customer. While large corporations send their profits to foreign economies, small businesses keep profits in their hometowns to benefit local economies according to the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.
There are smaller staffs in small businesses than large corporations, according to Patriot Software. Because the owner of a small business works many different positions within the company, a customer is much more likely to be able to contact the store owner than at a large corporation. This helps create a more personal feel between the customer and the establishment.
Small businesses rely on the support of local residents to stay up and running. While there are close to 30 million local businesses in the United States, only half will survive to the five-year mark, according to shopify. Students shopping small can help alleviate this.
“I think large corporations are already profitable,” junior journalism and emerging media major Massiel Nunez said. “It doesn’t hurt to support small businesses so they can grow too.”
Every business has to start somewhere, and students choosing to support a local business may be the difference between an entrepreneur surviving or failing.
Large corporations have an abundance of name brand items in central locations in most towns, but nothing beats helping out a small business owner start and maintaining their community shop. Students should choose to shop at small, local shops in order to benefit the local economy and discourage the presence of aggressive corporations.
