Think Globally, Buy Locally

Late one night this past summer I was planning a family trip to the Big Island to spend time with old friends in Kona and, being a techno-savvy guy, I shopped online for flights. Bingo, I found airfares for flights that fit the date and times I wanted and were $20 cheaper each way than the nearest competition. For our family of four, I’d save a cool $160, more than enough to cover the car rental. I pulled out my credit card and pushed send without a second thought. Oops.

A few days later, another close friend told me that she was also going to visit the friends in Kona, and she offered us coupons that would allow us relax in the premier lounge at the airport while we waited for our flight. Unfortunately, the lounge belonged to one of the competitor airlines that I’d passed on, a locally-owned airline on whose board she sits. I had to confess that we weren’t flying her airline, and what a scolding I got about flying on the predatory Mainland competitor. Suddenly that $160 didn’t seem like such a good deal.

Of course, this is just a footnote to the on-going debate over the impact of “big-box” retailers here in Hawaii. A couple of years ago, the state studied this very question and found it near impossible to analyze because it was difficult to define not only what a “big-box” retailer was but even what being a “local” business was. Further, on some level, every new business that comes to Hawaii impacts some other business here, whether it’s selling macadamia nuts, chocolates, insurance, food, or airline tickets.

I asked my buddies at our weekly breakfast what they thought. After hearing my confession, one said there is no price to his loyalty; he wouldn’t have even considered the non-local airline option. Another pegged it at 15 percent; that’s how much more he’d be willing to pay to support local business. Both agreed, however, that being “local” wasn’t enough to earn unwavering loyalty; a business still had to offer something the “big boxes” didn’t, like better service.

A third friend then shared a great story of how in the neighbor island plantation town in which he grew up, there were three general stores, each locally owned and having pretty much the same goods for purchase. He said that his parents would frequent all three of them, buying different items at each. He asked why they didn’t just buy everything at one store. They said it was important to support each of the stores since they were all local and part of the community. In fact, one of the stores was smaller than the other two and mostly sold snack items, and either of the other two stores could easily have carried the same snacks and driven it out of business. But they didn’t do it because that store owner was a neighbor and needed to earn a living, and in small communities you even help your competitors out.

Well, guess what: times have changed. Only one of those three stores is left now, and the plantation itself is long gone. Still, I get it: we need to support our local businesses that provide value. They better have good web sites, though, because I don’t shop anywhere but online: it’s open all night and parking’s no problem.

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