4 Ways You Can Support Your Local Businesses

During this unexpected time, local businesses need our support more now than ever. While it might not be possible to shop around inside of a store or eat at your favorite restaurant, there are still ways to support small businesses. We’ve put together a list of four easy ways to show your support for your favorite small local businesses!

1. Order Carry-Out

While right now limits the ability to get together with family and friends for a dinner out, that doesn’t mean you can’t still enjoy your favorite burritos or double cheeseburger! To help maintain business, many restaurants are offering curbside pick-up.

Bonus: A lot of local and chain restaurants are making food delivery services available. This means family movie night can be made even better with pizza delivery!

2. Buy Now, Use Later

Want to support local but have nothing on your shopping list? Buying gift cards is one of the easiest ways to support small business right now. This is especially true for local businesses that cannot be open at all right now. The purchase of a gift card provides an immediate income to the business. Send the gift card to a friend as a treat or even use it to buy yourself something nice a few months down the road.

3. Send a Gift

Shelter-in-place has meant that many of us aren’t able to spend time with family and friends. While we may not be able to spend time together in person, that doesn’t mean you can’t send some love or good thoughts to someone through good old-fashioned snail mail.

Many stores and online marketplaces are offering gift packages to send to friends! What’s a better way to show someone you care than by picking out a few unique gift items and sending a custom care package their way?

Plus, Mother’s Day is right around the corner. If you’re unable to spend the day celebrating your mom, consider hopping online or calling up your favorite boutique and assembling a gift box of goodies to be delivered. A thoughtful combination of her favorite things will give the usual flower bouquet a run for its money.

4. Share Content

Spending extra money is not always a possibility. That doesn’t mean you can’t still support local businesses another way! Extra time at home might also mean additional time to spend catching up on our social lives through different platforms like Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. All the same, many local businesses utilize one or more these platforms to share about their company updates or offers.

You can support local businesses by sharing their posts or pictures to your social media pages. The more you share, the more the eyes will see their advertisements and updates. This creates opportunity for new customers and more people to support the businesses.

Bonus. Not Local? Order Online.

Some of us have favorite shops we’ve discovered on vacation or while spending a day out shopping with friends. While these shops may not be local to your area, you can still support them by shopping online. Many store owners have used this down-time to revamp and update their websites with new inventory. Some stores are even offering free shipping for all items. This means that you don’t even have to leave your comfy spot on the couch to order some new clothes or home décor.

While being at home isn’t ideal, it gives us a chance to realize how much we love our local businesses!

Because of this, we can do our part to show our appreciation through practicing some of these suggestions.

How do you plan to support local businesses? Maybe you’ll change your dinner plans for this evening or send a care package to a long-distant friend!