If anyone is interested in the “Buy Local for the Holidays” initiative that I’ve been talking about here lately, some of us will be getting together at Caf
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more on the ypsi “buy local for the holidays” campaign
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Some specific questions that have come up since I’ve been looking at the materials from last year (pdf).
1) We list Dreamland Theater under “Music and Instruments.” We don’t list the Riverside Arts Center at all. I’m assuming people could purchase tickets in advance for shows at either. Would it be worth considering an “Entertainment” classification? Is there anything else that would fit under that category?
2) We did not have Art Attack on the list last year. The best place I can find for them, under the current structure, is “Gifts and Home Goods.” Is there something that would work better?
3) I’ve bought small gifts at the Co-op before… Would it make sense to also put them under “Gafts and Home Goods”?
4) It’s been suggested that we add Cannon’s, which isn’t in either Depot Town, or on the Michigan Avenue strip. Are there other businesses we’re missing?
5) Last year, we listed a few restaurants, bars and coffeeshops on the flyer. It wasn’t comprehensive. This year, what should we do? Do we just want to list every place by name, or do we want to limit it to coffeeshops, like Luwak, Bombadil’s and the Ugly Mug? I’m afraid that it might get unweildy if we try to accomplish everything with this one flyer.
6) Do we want to list “Services” as well? The two that come to mind are the exercise place on Washington, the belly dancing place on Huron, and the karate place nextdoor. Are there others? Is there a better word that “Services”?
Any other issues?
As far as services, there is 11? West Salon and Spa and a couple tattoo parlors.
Concerning no. 4… There are a couple cool stores out of the downtowns. There are two re-sale shops (One of them is Second Chance Consignment) and the Purple Feet Winery (make your own wine and by brew kits for homemade beer).
Going to try to make it to Luwak tonight, but might be a few minutes late. So excited that people are pushing the buy local initiative again this year!
How’d it go?
I am committed this year, like last year, to buy all my Christmas presents locally that I can. Can we organize some sort of contest where the winner gets a $50.00 dollar gift certificate to the local shop of their choice? I’m not sure how to structure it, but maybe we have a list of all that wish to participate and we see who shopped locally the most?? Problem is that I don’t know how to quantify most, more money, more stores, more gift certs to restaurants etc… The good problem is that all who participate, and hopefully there are many, are all helping local shops and restaurants, so it could be a win-win for everyone involved. Any suggestions???
Great idea, Karen. We kind of touched on it last night, but I don’t think we came to any real conclusion. One of the things we discussed was entering everyone who, through the website, took the “Buy Local for the Holidays Challenge” in a raffle. We could have a bunch of gift certificates, or maybe, if we’re ambitious, a big Ypsi Gift Basket featuring stuff from a bunch of stores.
Lisa Dugdale from Think Local First mentioned that some other towns have tried to do competitions where they required people to hand in receipts and such, but that seems like it would be difficult to administer. I think maybe it would be enough this year to just ask people to take the pledge/challenge to be entered in a drawing. Then maybe we could get more ambitious next year.
How about this for an idea? Post a sheet of “shop local” tickets on the website along with the pledge form. Each pledger prints the sheet, cuts out the tickets and fills in his orher name and phone number. Present a ticket to the store every time you make a purchase. When shoppers need more tickets they can print more off the site. At the end of the shopping season the tickets can be collected from the stores and used for the drawing.