Do you support any local, small time businesses?

I'm going to a retro game store in a neighboring city. Gonna buy a couple video games, regardless of whether I find the prices to be a little high. I feel like they need the support. 'Tis the season.

How about you?

Yeah I guess, although I fell into it more to support my handicapped cousin who I randomly saw there the first time I went.

Yeah, a Korean restaurant, a barber, a butcher/fish/deli place. Also a good produce place where they have a lot of fruit and vegetables I like that they don't even have at the big places anyway, and way cheaper too. Sometimes it's like big places jack up the price because you go there by habit or for a coupon or for your loyalty card and you don't look anywhere else.

And maybe department stores are not local but they hire local people, and I would rather people work there than at an amazon scream closet warehouse or peepee jar delivery so I try to go in person and buy stuff there.

Always and only use local takeways (takeouts), so yea I guess.

Mostly just restaurants and independent grocery stores.

I don't really buy much stuff and when I do it's usually Amazon, which pains me but...cost and choice is a huge motivator to use Amazon and not a local place.

Yes, I support a local convenience store. I buy soft drinks and snacks from them. Also, there used to be a christian book store near my house, but they [unfortunately] went out of business once COVID hit us. I buy my books online now (mostly from Amazon).

@mrbojangles25: It sucks that if a vendor on Amazon sells their product for a lower price elsewhere, they are banished from Amazon. Hopefully there will be a challenge in court.

restaurants / delis mostly.

Yep. I don't buy made in china stuff unless its really out of necessity or gaming related. tad more expensive but I personally found that local products cater more to us so honestly I don't mind.

Yes, mostly at restaurants.

I spend money at 4 different comic shops within a 30 mile radius of my home. I will also stop at any comic shop I see when out of my home radius. We have a small used vinyl record store in my town that we hit up every so often. Other than that, just small restaurants or pubs and antique stores me and the wife might find in our wanderings.

Had a tabletop game store in my area that I would stop at once in a while. My meager business wasn't enough to keep it afloat though. Closed down last year.

When practical and convenient. That usually happens when eating out or if there's vendors at a market or something similar.

Yeah Amazon is shady as hell.

Yeah it's funny how I actively avoid products made in China when I can help it. It's difficult with electronics of course, but I do my best to buy things that are made in America (not out of patriotism, the quality is just better in many cases) or from European companies known for making specific, quality products.

That's not to say there aren't good quality Chinese products--I'm shopping around for a wok at the moment, and the best ones seem to be hand-crafted Chinese ones for a good price--but there's a lot of crap. Not to mention Chinese industry tends to rip off other companies and find refuge on Amazon.

Only one of the local bike shops. There are two that I sort of want to support, but the customer support at one of them is at outright horrible. The other one has improved greatly from first time I visited.

Granted I go in maybe once a year so it isn't like I support them a lot.

Not really, no, I'm not that rich to overpay for the stuff that I would get from a huge ass chain supermarket (our small businesses are fucked).

A certain barbeque restaurant since most restaurants here are not that special. We usually cook at home though.

I have a local BBQ restaurant that has great food though a bit pricey like $10 on up. There's also a local Mexican restaurant though only thing I like are is their Pastor plate with cactus, beans and salad. They went up on their prices to $10 so I only go during the specials on the weekends.