There are a lot of benefits to buying local which are some of the following: Being aware of the production process, supporting your community.
I will buy local if it is convenient and something there meets my eye. Other than that I prefer to buy at places like walmart or target. Places like those usually have what I am looking for at a good price. The baked goods that they sell there are good enough to satisfy me and are convenient on a budget.
Well I love to purchase from local farmers and shops. Infact 90% of the things I buy are from them. They are cheaper and fresher and sometimes I could haggle for lower prices lol. Over here, most of the big franchise are considerably more expensive especially when the products are imported. Just like fruits, ours are sold for close to nothing but the imported ones like apples and grapes are really expensive especially at those big marts. Only a few of them sell at market price or a bit lower. So I opt for local stores unless it is something o can't find there or the cost is pretty much the same with the big shops.
I agree that buying local has its own advantage but what I feel is that the biggest advantage is that it provides more job opportunities to local people and gives a better price to local traders/farmers. Besides your money stays in your own country.
Personally, I prefer to buy from local business establishment than business franchise, because most of these business franchise now hardly care about consumer satisfaction. They have the name and face/image, so they don't really care what happens to one of their customers. But if it's local business establishment, they are still on the process of growing, so trying to satisfy each and every need of their customer is a priority and this makes me patronize them more often.
I mostly do online shopping mainly because it is easy and I have a wider choice. I have even noticed refunds and returns are easy. Amazon is where I shop and till today I have had no trouble when we claimed refund or exchange of items.
It's really important to me to buy at the local stores. I have many reasons why I always buy at the local stores and one of them is the affordable prices that I can't get on the international ones. Although some stores produce low quality products, it's okay for me since the prices are very cheap and affordable.
I am trying to buy local not because of the price or to support the community, I am doing this because all the products that are produced locally are a better quality than the items that I bought from other cities or countries.
