"Shop Local" Coupons Available for Download

At its fall trade show, the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association (NCIBA) began offering its members NCIBA- and San Francisco Locally Owned Merchants Association-branded "informational coupons" that highlight the benefits of shopping locally. Now, NCIBA is making the four coupons, each featuring a different educational message but minus the NCIBA logo, available in PDF format to other booksellers and regional associations.

NCIBA hopes that booksellers will provide the bookmark-sized, paper coupons to customers as an educational "take away," either stapled to a receipt or inserted into a book at the time of purchase.

Hut Landon, NCIBA's executive director, told BTW that one of the inspirations for the coupon was the success of ABA's Shop Local education session. "ABA has shown with its Shop Local educational programming how important this issue is to booksellers across the country," he said. "We borrowed the idea for [the creation of the coupon] from Shop Local Chicago as a way to give booksellers an easy way to get the message to their customers."

The PDF includes coupons with the following messages:

• More money for your city: Significantly more money is re-circulated in your city or town when purchases are made at locally owned businesses. They, in turn, purchase from other locally owned businesses and service providers, keeping the money reinvested in the community.

• Reduced environmental impact: Locally owned businesses can make more local purchases that require less transportation. They usually set up shop in town or city centers instead of developing on the fringe. That means less sprawl, congestion, habitat loss and pollution.

• Non-profits receive greater support: Nonprofit organizations receive an average 350 percent greater support from local business owners than they do from non-locally owned businesses.

• Keeping our distinctive character: Our one-of-a-kind businesses are an integral part of the unique character of any community. That character is a big part of why we live here, and it nurtures our region's tourist business as well.

On the left-hand side of each coupon is the slogan "Another Great Reason to Shop Local First"; on the right is space for a store or regional association logo.

Northern California booksellers who would like to receive copies of the NCIBA-branded coupons should contact the regional at [email protected]. Others who would like to receive a copy of the unbranded coupons as a JPEG rather than a PDF should send an e-mail to Landon at [email protected]. --David Grogan