Good Reasons for Shopping Local Independent Businesses

Personalized service and flexible pricing are only two of the many good reasons to patronize your local independent businesses. Jeebster.com is proud to be part of the grassroots movement that is encouraging consumers to shift more of their shopping dollars to the smaller, independent merchants that are the life blood of our communities.

It is the small businesses that operate independently from the big corporations that provide the widest variety of job creation in our communities. Local businesses don’t ship their accounting and graphic design needs off to the corporate office to take care of. They hire these types of services from other local businesses or create positions in their own organizations to meet those needs. When you shop local, you don’t just keep your dollars in the community, you foster economic development and job creation in your own community, without any help from the government at all!

There are plenty of daily-deal type websites popping up on the internet that offer big one-time discounts from local merchants, but consumers who want to keep their dollars supporting independent businesses will find that many of those deals relate to big corporations with big advertising budgets. Local merchants who have utilized these sites have also been disappointed with the limited sales growth gained from these types of one-time promotional tactics.

Jeebster.com was born out of the desire to provide a reward system for consumers who support their local independent businesses and a more affective marketing alternative to those same businesses. The free membership at Jeebster.com for local business patrons means they will receive personalized  specials and updates from their favorite Jeebster merchants in one concise weekly email. Jeebster merchants gain an opportunity to foster long-term relationships with a continually growing base of supportive subscribers. It is a win-win for local consumers and small independent businesses who want to make better use of a limited marketing budget. 

Happy New Year!

From all of us at Jeebster, we wish you and yours a happy and healthy New Year! As we expand to Calabasas, Studio City and other nearby Woodland Hills cities, we ask that you invite all your friends and family to join Jeebster.com to support all your favorite neighborhood small businesses. We’ve got some great restaurants, gift shops, boutiques, spas and salons joining our network and we invite you to take advantage of all the great coupons, discounts and offers provided by our merchants.

Businesses should focus on loyalty & retention, not deal hunters.

How many of us have heard the recent horrors of a daily deal offer gone wrong for a business? The most famous one is the story published by Washington Post a few weeks ago about a Groupon deal where a bakery was hit with 102,000 cupcake orders( Groupon horror: Bakery must make 102,000 cupcakes). 

To understand how daily deal sites can help businesses, there is no need to have a degree in business or finance but rather it should be understood that it is a great source for bringing deal-hunters and that businesses must limit the number of the vouchers to be sold. It’s not entirely the daily deal site’s fault for a deal gone wrong because the merchants should realize that this method does not focus on customer loyalty or retention. So if the owners realize these key features of such deals and its consequences, then it becomes a matter of a business decision. 

In the long run, the businesses that feature a deal will not most likely gain loyal customers. To have someone loyal, the customer must feel rewarded by a steady and constant good service and occasional saving opportunities, even if it’s a small percentage off.