‘Buy local’ campaigns paying off
The wide reach of a tag-team of top-down and grassroots ‘‘buy local’’ campaigns is paying off for Manawatu¯ businesses as they rebuild following the coronavirus crisis.
The Central Economic Development Agency’s Choose Manawatu¯, a digital platform showcasing 300 regional growers, creators and business owners, has racked up over 12,000 unique visitors since the lockdown started.
Agency spokeswoman Janet Reynolds said it was part of a campaign that has reached another 60,000 people on social media.
It is designed to build on and complement grassroots groups that have sprung up, such as Manawatu¯ Business – Support Local, which has been running for two years, and larger newcomer Feilding Shop Local, which has nearly 4000 members.
Reynolds said business owners were reporting a noticeable change in people’s spending habits.
The agency’s third coronavirus impact business survey, covering the first two weeks of May, captured a huge improvement in business confidence since the campaigns started gaining traction.
Of the 347 businesses who responded to the survey, 56 per cent were significantly concerned about the pandemic’s economic impact; down from 70 per cent of businesses in March.
Feilding Shop Local administrator Kate Lankshear was co-ordinating directly with Choose Manawatu¯ towards long-termsupport for businesses hit hard bymore than amonth without income.
Lankshear has a home-based bedding company, Monday Silks, and knew from her own struggles how much harder things would be for businesses with higher overheads.
She started the Facebook group at alert level 3, to get locals out and buying again, to put money back into business owners’ pockets and give them some hope. ‘‘I’ve received lots of feedback from businesses saying they’ve been inundated with inquiries [since joining] ... which is pretty amazing.’’
Dannevirke woman Marie Helleur’s new company, Aftermath Hotsauce, caught fire after a post on New Zealand Made Products’ Facebook page on May 15.
Overnight she gained thousands of new followers and hundreds of orders. ‘‘I couldn’t sleep that night, I was so happy.
‘‘It’s crazy. On that Thursday I still hadn’t got through the orders from the Saturday, and the orders kept coming in.’’
A long-time chilli pepper and hot sauce lover, Helleur had dreamt of starting her own brand of sauce for more than a year.
But working fulltime as a real estate agent didn’t allow the time. Lockdown suddenly gave her all the time in the world.
Aftermath is just her, in her kitchen, cooking up smallbatches of hot sauce that she bottles herself.
Helleur said she never expected the sauce to go so well, it was only intended as a hobby-business that paid for itself.
Manawatu¯ Bamboo owners Danny and Nicci O’connell had immediate benefits after joining the Feilding Shop Local group. ‘‘We did the best sales we’ve ever done, online, since we started,’’ Danny O’connell said.
‘‘It’s still going pretty good, but for three to four weeks there we were almost matching our usual revenue.’’
O’connell said for two years their sales were almost entirely from craft markets around the lower North Island. Efforts to publicise their website had not connected with the right demographic.
The lockdown meant they couldn’t go to their customers, so they had to find a way to get customers to come to them. The unity and ‘‘buy local’’ mandate lockdown encouraged provided the necessary thrust.