To the editor:

With the holiday shopping season upon us, I would like to encourage everyone to shop locally. Whether you are shopping for daily goods and services or special holiday gifts, most of these items are available within our region.

Shopping locally keeps more money in the local communities and precludes the loss of unnecessary leakage from our economy. In 2020 a civil economics study found that local retailers return approximately 50% of their revenue to the local economy and recirculate an average of 55.7% of their revenue locally. This is due to spending more on local labor, goods, goods procured locally for resale, and services from local providers.

Having a strong base of local retailers and restaurants provides job opportunities and, in the United States, today provides roughly two-thirds of private-sector jobs. A strong local business community leads to more retail and business opportunities community-wide. Most corporate real estate teams and real estate brokers evaluate the health of a market by looking at the current retail landscape, its pull factor as well as any significant leakage in the market. A healthy local economy with successful local retailers and restaurants makes it more likely that they’ll see opportunities in the community. That in itself makes it additionally easier to recruit a workforce and ultimately new primary sector manufacturing and service industry companies.

E-commerce has certainly made it more convenient to shop from the comfort of our homes, especially in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic; but keep in mind that many of our local retailers also have online shopping and shipping available, making it even easier to support our local economy. Although it may be tempting to purchase items from large on-line companies such as Amazon, you can find many of those items right here within our region.

I am proud of the strong business community that we have within the Greater Fort Dodge Region and I encourage you to support the businesses where you live, work and play. Together, we can preserve and grow our local economy.

Dennis A. Plautz, CEO

Greater Fort Dodge Growth Alliance