Shoppers are being urged to put their money where their heart is this Christmas by buying their presents from Griffith’s businesses.
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Griffith Business Chamber is hoping that shopper is asking people to “live local, love local, buy local” as a way of giving back to their community this giving season.
Chamber secretary Amanda Quarisa said that it made a huge difference to the livelihoods of business owners.
“If each person in our region spent an extra $5 a week in the local community instead of online or elsewhere it would add an extra $24 million to our economy,” Ms Quarisa said.
Those statistics come from a study conducted by Griffith City Council and demography experts from economy.id, who found that a weekly spending increase of $5 a week from everyone could create about 218 new jobs for Griffith.
According to their data there are nearly 14,000 local jobs in Griffith – more than there have ever been before – but that there is a lot of room for growth.
Chamber vice president Paul Pierotti said he wanted to encourage people to hold their gleeful shopping sprees closer to home.
“People need to understand how serious the impact is when they shop online or go away to other centres like Wagga for shopping,” Mr Pierotti said.
“We’re very strong advocates of getting people to support their local services and businesses.”
It’s a message that the business chamber has been pushing for many years, but one that has become more salient over the years given the rise of online shopping.
Now Griffith Business Chamber is hoping shoppers will consider spreading the Christmas cheer to local business owners.
“We should be proud of our local businesses and support them,” Mr Pierotti said.
“We do have a very vibrant and unique retail precinct; you can just look at Banna Avenue and see how amazing and interesting it is.”
The business chamber committee is hoping that their message will reach shoppers and stay with them all year round, not just for Christmas.