Utahns urged to shift spending during Small Business Saturday


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SALT LAKE CITY — They are ready at Paletti on Highland Drive to help shoppers looking for unique Christmas gifts.

Like other small, locally-owned businesses around Utah though, they just need more shoppers to come through the door.

"Local businesses are still struggling because of the Internet and the amount of money that is being spent on Internet purchases," Paletti co-owner Carol Elliott said.

Organizers of Small Business Saturday and Shift Your Spending Week say that, on average, for every $100 spent in a local store, $56 stays in the community. Spend that same amount in a big box store, they say, and only $13 stays in the local economy.

"There's a tremendous economic impact when we shop locally," said Kristen Lavelett, executive director of Local First Utah.

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The impact goes beyond just dollars and cents though, according to Lavelett.

"We embrace our friends and our neighbors," she said. "We contribute to the places where we live. We provide support to the locally-owned businesses that support local charities, that create jobs, that keep money circulating through our economy."

Salt Lake County Mayor Ben McAdams said if Utahns shift just 10 percent of their spending to local businesses, it would generate $1 billion for the state economy.

"That's more than our ski industry," the mayor said, adding that most products sold as gifts by local businesses "show somebody that you put that extra thought into the gift."

Many locally-owned businesses in Utah are surviving and thriving, McAdams said, even with competition from the Internet and national retail chains.

"But we can give them a boost and in turn help our own economy," he said.

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