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Shop Anamosa Campaign

The Board of Directors and the Anamosa Area Chamber of Commerce office has worked diligently to strengthen the quality of life in Anamosa. We are concerned about the economic vitality of the community. Please consider the positive impact you have when you buy from locally owned businesses. Voting with your dollars does make a difference, and it is a positive step towards connecting with your community and becoming a more engaged citizen.

The Anamosa Area Chamber of Commerce office decided to get involved to promote a Shop Anamosa campaign to encourage shopping locally. We are asking out members and the community to be supportive of our locally owned businesses. We have designed a logo for this program and encourage our members to display it on promotional and advertising materials. Anamosa Publications has this logo available if you would like to add it to your newspaper advertising. This program will enhance the livability of our community, the stability and diversity of the local economy, community, economic benefits of choosing to buy local first.

Locally owned businesses:

• Spend more money at other local businesses helping the local economy grow – creating a “multiplier effect” – rather than this money “leaking out” to other communities

• Pay their fair share in local and state taxes

• Are part of what makes Anamosa unique and distinctive, attracting tourism from surrounding areas and our of state

• Give better customer service overall

• Have owners that live in the communities they do business in and are free to make decisions based on local needs

It is not always possible to buy everything you need from locally owned businesses, but if everyone purchased one more item locally when they shopped, the effects would be tremendous. The point of this campaign is to encourage people to think Local First: choose locally owned businesses when choosing where to buy goods and services!

Retailers in cities with active Shop Local campaigns reported much larger increases in holiday sales on average than those in cities without such campaigns. Shop Local campaigns have been launched by local business alliances in more than three dozen communities. Independent retailers in these cities reported and average gain in sales four times higher than cities without Shop Local campaigns during the 2006 holiday season.

Please join the Anamosa Area Chamber of Commerce by supporting this effort.

     Why Shop Local?

Top Ten Reasons to Shop Local

1. Protect Local Character and Prosperity

Anamosa is a very unique and cultural community with a historical flavor. By choosing to support locally owned businesses, you help maintain Anamosa’s distinctive flavor and past.

2. Community Well-Being

Locally owned businesses build strong neighborhoods by sustaining communities, linking neighbors, and by contributing more to local causes.

3. Local Decision Making

Local ownership means that important decisions are made locally by people who live in the community and who will feel the impacts of those decisions.

4. Keeping Dollars in the Local Economy

When shopping locally, you simultaneously create jobs, fund more city services through sales tax, invest in neighborhood improvement and promote community development.

5. Job and Wages

Locally owned businesses create more jobs locally and, in some sectors, provide competitive wages and benefits.

6. Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship fuels America’s economic innovation and prosperity, and serves as a key means for families to move out of low-wage jobs and into the middle class.

7. Public Benefits and Costs

Local stores in town centers require comparatively little infrastructure and make efficient use of public services.

8. Environmental Sustainability

Local stores help to sustain vibrant, compact, walkable facilities-which in turn are essential to reducing sprawl, automobile use, habitat loss, and air and water pollution.

9. Competition

A marketplace of small businesses is the best way to ensure innovation and low prices over the long-term.

10. Product Diversity