posted 30 April 2008 by Paula | link to this
tags: business, buy local, local books, local economies
I’m tracking a new blog debate going on regarding the “localness” of big-box retailers… specifically, whether Barnes & Noble qualifies as a local business and what this means to locally-owned booksellers.
The conversation started off with this post from “tgrJams,” a blogger and B&N employee. tgrJams writes:
While I can understand the perception that we aren’t local – I must explain that it’s a huge misconception. We are, in fact, very local. We are located in Bakersfield, on California Avenue and even have a college store at CSUB (it’s kind of its own store separate from us, but, still local). But then people say, “Well, you don’t keep the money here in Bakersfield”… Also not true.
Truth is, we employ people that live here, shop here, pay taxes here, use gas stations here, go to college here, have kids that go to public schools here, go to doctor’s here and buy houses here – among other things.
We contribute to schools, libraries and charitable organizations by way of donations of cash and/or product. We support local schools, literacy and arts organizations throughout the year. I myself have contributed time and effort in many citywide events! We have hosted fundraising organizations in our store, at our expense, and have made large donations to the fundraiser, as well!
tgrJam’s post garnered a handful of excellent responses that included links to NewRules.org and BigBoxSwindle.com. Then, a blogger named Brian posted quite an eloquent, if frustrated, response at the collaborative blog Survival of the Book, titled Drinking the Kool-Aid:
The fact is, an order from B&N can set a print run, and that includes a small order that really hurts the book. I’ve seen that happen in my job. The orders are made with a vast majority of shoppers in mind, not minority shoppers – and I mean that in every sense of the word. This system hurts niches, most visibly African American fiction and non-fiction. Walk into most B&N’s and the selection of books by and for African Americans is sorely lacking.
Brian makes several other great points as well, ranging from corporate control over local decision-making to low wages to product availability.
To this discussion I would add my own $.02: the only possible way for any big-box chain retail to profit from its stores is to impoverish the local communities in which they are located. Money must be taken out of the local economy in order to pay shareholder dividends and corporate overhead. There is no other way. If an individual big-box store is not removing at least enough money from the local economy to cover far-away headquarters’ costs in operating the thing, it is a losing proposition.
Barnes & Noble may indeed host community functions and contribute to local charities, but this is not out of respect or care for the community — it is part of a public relations strategy that has a measurable return on investment. In other words, these things serve the purpose of siphoning money out of the local economy; and if the day arrives when community events and charity no longer assist in achieving that goal, they will be brought to an end. Big-box stores are hardly more than a wealth redistribution program that sucks money from local working people and small business owners, and sends it off to the investor class, many of whom are now moving their wealth into foreign bank accounts where they are protected from taxes and into foreign currencies that are appreciating against the dollar.
Local economies pay a far higher price for the presence of big-box stores than they save at point-of-sale. No, big-box chains are not “local,” tgrJams, and your future local employment would be much more secure had B&N in fact lost that big sale to the local bookseller. 