Do you support local companies?

[Prison Bitch]

Browsing the Hallmark store today over lunch to get my wife a Valentine's Day card, I wondered how many people in KC would not purchase a Hallmark product even if it was more expensive. I'm sure my limited spending won't make much of a difference, but I nearly always buy local if I can. I will buy Hallmark, eat at Applebee's over Chilis (even though it sucks), buy a Garmin GPS and use Sprint cellphone service.

Others might disagree. I have a good friend who works at Sprint. He said it's a known fact inside the company that their marketshare here in KC ("share of decisions") is no greater or worse than their national average. So people in KC won't bother supporting Sprint which is a huge economic engine here. I think that's crazy. I assume the same studies would bear out for Hallmark or Garmin.


Anyway, just wanted to get your thoughts on this.

[aturnis]

Originally Posted by Hoover

If I can support conservative leaning companies I do that too.

So you pretty much stick to Wal-Mart?

[BlackHelicopters]

What exactly, am I "buying".

[Chief_For_Life58]

**** sprint

[GloryDayz]

Originally Posted by Prison Bitch

The poll is running 12-1. How many of them use Sprint? Or bought a Garmin?

I do have a Gramin, but not Sprint (anymore). They just suck compared to the Service I get with AT&T at work (downtown) and at home (Lees Summit).

But AT&T sucks balls too. If you're driving North or South on I-435 where it intersects with 350, you can almost be guaranteed to drop the call. I stuck with it (meaning I worked through all their levels of excuses and weak techs) and got them to look into it, and after a LOT of work and phone time, their weak ****ing answer was, "the topology in that area creates a lot of signal shadow." And they don't intend to do anything about it. LOL, you know you have a deadzone, make it hard as **** for a customer to relate it to you and all but prove it, then you just blown them off.

However, since it's all but awesome elsewhere, I'll deal with it and warn folks when I drive through AT&T's failure zone!

Maybe I will go back to Sprint! Just can't do Verizon, can't deal with not getting email or texts while I'm on the phone! Gay in 2013 to still have THAT issue!

**** you AT&T!

[The Franchise]

Originally Posted by NewChief

Sapling Press:

Those are awesome. Can you buy online?

[AustinChief]

It's funny that Sprint sucks in KC but down here in Texas Sprint kicks all sorts of ass. Never had a single issue and during high usage events like SXSW or ACL when others lose service I am always chugging along just fine.

And how is Garmin local? Aren't they Swiss?

[NewChief]

Originally Posted by Pestilence

Those are awesome. Can you buy online?

Yeah. Search Sapling Press. They have an etsy store.

[Psyko Tek]

Originally Posted by Prison Bitch

Browsing the Hallmark store today over lunch to get my wife a Valentine's Day card, I wondered how many people in KC would not purchase a Hallmark product even if it was more expensive. I'm sure my limited spending won't make much of a difference, but I nearly always buy local if I can. I will buy Hallmark, eat at Applebee's over Chilis (even though it sucks), buy a Garmin GPS and use Sprint cellphone service.

Others might disagree. I have a good friend who works at Sprint. He said it's a known fact inside the company that their marketshare here in KC ("share of decisions") is no greater or worse than their national average. So people in KC won't bother supporting Sprint which is a huge economic engine here. I think that's crazy. I assume the same studies would bear out for Hallmark or Garmin.


Anyway, just wanted to get your thoughts on this.

sorry, I don't understand..
those are all big chains.
are they headquartered in KC?

I try to by none chain for eating out other than that
I feed the corporat beast

[Spott]

I won't go to Applebee's just because their food sucks and I worked there when I was in college at UMKC. They are the blandest and cheapest of the chain restaurants that I can remember, although they did keep their corporate stores in the KC area very clean because their head quarters were in KC. I have AT&T but there's probably just as many AT&T/SBC employees in the KC area as Sprint employees so both could be considered a "local company". Didn't know Garmin was out of KC but I do prefer Garmin over the other brands.

[Rain Man]

Per others' comments, I would probably clarify my preferences in order as preferring independents and smaller businesses over chains and larger businesses. The local part really matters less than the small and independent part. I guess that means that I prefer to buy local regardless of where I'm at since those types of businesses are by definition local with respect to their location.

Maybe I would prefer local independents over non-local independents when buying online, but I generally don't have that information at hand when I'm buying.

And of course, this all assumes roughly similar quality and value. I'm not going to pay 25% more just because someone is small and independent if they don't offer something to offset it. However, I can usually expect better services and similar or better quality with a small independent.