Three Personal Reasons to Shop Locally This Weekend

Shoppers will crowd the super centers and malls this weekend following Thanksgiving. Friday and Saturday are really busy shopping days in the U.S. In fact, over the next several weeks, retail stores will do 50% or more of their business for the year.

So where will you go? And who will you do business with?

If you truly want to create a Work Positive impact with your holiday spending, here are three reasons to shop locally this Saturday, November 26, which is Small Business Saturday.

Personal Service

You receive personal service from the relationships you form with these retailers who really want to help you find that just-right gift for your special someone.

I can remember shopping as a kid with my parents. We went to see Mr. Alford at Clarks Department Store when I outgrew my dress clothes. He was a friend of ours and the store was locally owned. Mr. Alford always seemed to know what I looked best in.

We also bought our gas and had our cars serviced by J.B. Webb at the Esso station. J.B. was our neighbor, took excellent care of our vehicles, and let us keep an account with him which my Dad paid off every month. J.B. trusted us, and we trusted him to service our vehicles and make repairs.

In today's world where so much of everything is virtual, visit a local, small business retailer this weekend and enjoy the real-time, personal service.

Personal Support

Have you ever thought about where your money goes once your purchase is completed?

When you shop with a locally-owned, small business retailer, $68 of every $100 you spend returns to your local community. The obvious ways it returns are sales, payroll, and property taxes. Those taxes pay teacher salaries who educate our children, municipal utility crews who go out in ice storms and restore our electricity, water treatment plant operators who keep our drinking water safe, and many other government-supported services.

And what about the sales clerk who receives her paycheck and gives a donation to the local Salvation Army's Angel Tree? Or, buys her groceries from the local, fresh produce market? Or, buys gas for her vehicle from the locally-owned service center?

Those local dollars turn over many, many times, don't they?

Yes, we live in a global village. Spending your holiday gift money at a locally-owned, small business retailer profits your village.

Personal Satisfaction

Discover locally produced or themed products that carry with them an emotional attachment for the recipient. Such a unique gift carries with it a personal satisfaction that displays more intimacy and care than an "Oh yea" gift from a big boxer.

For instance, my brother purchased two historic postcards depicting scenes from the town I grew up in, framed them, and gave them to me for a holiday gift. His forethought, consideration, and knowledge of how much I miss that little town made that gift one I treasure to this day. My personal satisfaction from that gift is huge.

Find a local artist who paints regional scenes. Buy a painting and send it to a family member or friend who moved away.

Look around for other unique, locally-produced or themed gifts. They mean so much more than just another mass-made product.

So where will you shop this weekend?

With a local small business retailer, I hope.

Since you'll be out shopping anyway, go by your local small business stores and discover personal service, offer some personal support, and give some personal satisfaction.

Factors In Forming Corporate Image

Consumers assess the company is not only based on functional quality alone, but also based on psychological attributes are reflected by the company. Nguyen and Leblanc explained that there are two basic components of the company's image, namely the functional and emotional, in which functional components associated with attributes that can be easily measured, whereas the emotional component associated with psychological dimension, namely the feelings and attitudes of consumers towards the company, which is based on consumer experience when interacting with companies and attribute information that describes the company's image. In other words, the image is formed based on the experiences of consumers to the company product or service, which later can be taken into consideration for a decision.

Good experience from the consumer for the use of products will produce a good perception of the company's image, and at the moment will form what is called a corporate image. Normann in Kandampully stated that the factors forming the image of the company are:

Advertising,

Public relations,

Physical image,

Word of mouth,

Actual experiences of consumers in the use of goods or services.

Among these, which is considered the most important is the actual experience of consumers in the use of goods or services. Corporate image would make business reach more value.

Buy The Value, Not The Pack

Products to be expensive because of added to the cost of packaging, advertising, and distribution. Motto is a product that erodes all that burden. The result?

Three or four years ago, PT Songo Geni Maju (SGM) may not be a catchy name to know more. But, now, people became interested and find out how to partner with this company. In fact, its competitors, if not careful, they can be swayed by the doings of this detergent manufacturer.

Why? Because SGM does not market their products like other brands. In fact, these companies do not actually do any of the brand building.

SGM is not only producing detergents, but also dish soap, floor cleaner, and more. All products output SGM given only one brand, that motto. The name is easy to remember anyone. And acceptable in almost any language.

How to market it ? Uniquely, SGM does not market its products in a conventional manner as other detergent manufacturers in general. He sold the "bulk system" aka kilogram. Not just the detergent, all liquid cleaning products he was selling in liter way.

Of course this is different, because usually toiletries outstanding products sold in containers-including, packaging refill once. Thus, consumers who will purchase comes with a carrying container respectively. If for detergent, enough with the plastic alone.

How cheap and how the quality? First for quality, SGM unequivocally states that all products are quality equivalent to the branded product or a leading brand in the market. For example, detergent powder is not inferior to Attack, then softener Molto and other equivalent. Moreover, the SGM is toiletries product manufacturers for the U.S. market, Japan, and became a partner of Unilever Indonesia.

As for price, can be up to half the price of branded products mentioned above. For comparison, in modern retail stores like Carrefour priced fairly cheap, Rinso 900 grams sold Rp 12,490, while the motto of 1 kg of detergent sold Rp 8,000 to the consumer. Of the sales price to the consumer, the dealer gets a margin of about Rp 900 per kilogram.

Goods from the SGM to be cheap because it managed to cut into two-tier distribution channels only. Namely, from manufacturers to distributors, and from distributors to dealers, the term for a retail merchant's motto. Each distributor dealers usually charge 200-500.

Then, to protect the dealers and reduce competition, the monopoly system is applied. So, everyone who wants to be dealers, the region will be surveyed. When in the area of ​​existing seller, it is advisable to look elsewhere. Because in every 300 heads of households may only have one dealer.

Who are the end-user of this bulk detergent? Apparently, very diverse. Not that cheap due to the lower middle class. But, from middle class to upper class was using it. Many dealers are located precisely in luxury estates, such as Palm d'Ivoire, City Tours, Rafflesia, and others.

Bulk sales model needs toiletries started SGM since 2006. Exactly three years after the SGM stand. It took several years to prepare, either from the system until the preparation of raw materials.

How to sell its products not just bulk only. However, the merger between multi-level marketing (MLM) and drinking water refill. MLM model is used to recruit dealers. While the refill water model is a way to distribute the product to the dealers.