Small Businesses Essential To Cape Cod’s Economy

HARWICH – Love Live Local, a Hyannis-based nonprofit with the mission of growing the Cape’s economy by encouraging people to shop locally, is engaging municipalities across the region to work with and support the small business community.

“Local, state, and national governments play a huge role in ensuring their growth and subsequent reinvestment in our towns and entire region,” Amanda Converse, a founder of the nonprofit, told the select board last week. “There are many policy and programmatic decisions that are made every day that can support our small businesses on their path to success.”

“Our aim is to provide and rally support for all local businesses, because despite their proven importance to local economies and community vitality, small businesses across the country continue to face challenges to their survival like supply chain disruptions, increased personnel and material costs, staffing challenges here on Cape Cod, and the housing crisis,” she said.

Love Live Local was founded in 2013 by three small business owners, including Converse. It started as a passion project, she said, but now has become a nonprofit organization dedicated to strengthening Cape Cod’s local economy by promoting the importance of supporting small businesses and fostering thriving communities.

“Through education, advocacy, and direct support, we strive to inspire residents and visitors alike to invest in our unique local businesses and contribute to the sustainable growth of our region,” said Converse.

Local businesses help give Cape Cod its distinct sense of place, but public policy choices over the past five decades have harmed small businesses, she said. This has negatively impacted Main Streets across the country, leaving communities without a sense of place and entrepreneurs without the confidence and capital they need to bring their ideas to life. As a result, the number of small businesses started in the United States has been on a steady decline since the 1970s, according to Converse.

“We are lucky that here on Cape Cod we do have a strong local business culture, but we are not immune to what goes on over the bridge,” she said. “We work to ensure the impacts of things like corporate concentration and the massive shift to shopping online with large ecommerce giants doesn’t impact our local businesses to a point of no return. Our goal is to show people why it’s important to choose local and how to do it.”

Since April 2020, Love Live Local has produced its own annual studies to quantify and assess the impact of Cape Cod’s locally owned businesses on the economy as compared to national chains and online corporations. It is important to put a dollar amount on just how much local businesses reinvest in the Cape Cod community “to show people it’s not just about supporting friends and neighbors who own small businesses — it also makes financial and economic sense for all of us,” Converse said.

Purchases from national corporations typically send money out of the local economy, she said.

“When dollars are spent locally, they can in turn be re-spent locally, raising the overall level of economic activity. These analyses have quantified what we already knew: local businesses of all kinds — retailers, restaurants, and personal and business service providers — keep up to four times as much money in the local economy as their national chain competitors,” Converse said.

Put into real dollars, a market shift of just 10 percent from corporate stores to independent stores on Cape Cod would retain an additional $112 million in the local economy every year, she said.

The nonprofit introduced a Shift Local Pledge in November, asking Cape Codders to sign up and shift at least 10 percent of their holiday budget to local businesses. Early participants committing to the pledge added $175,000 to the local economy over the holiday season, she said.

Studies actually show that corporate concentration makes it almost impossible for new companies to enter and compete in many markets and leads to stagnant wage growth. And once a market is concentrated enough, companies can and will manipulate prices, reduce supply and deliver terrible customer service.

“The moral of the story is that locally owned businesses, no matter the industry, consistently exceed their chain and online competitors in spite of what the corporations would have you believe,” Converse said.

The group is encouraging select boards to be open to working with local businesses, to provide access to resources and support through grants and technical assistance, to end all tax subsidies for or special treatment of national corporations, and to support zoning ordinances that encourage the proliferation of locally owned businesses. Towns should also support main streets and downtowns with funding, data collection and support for special events, and advocate for equitable access to business ownership, she said.

“These measures and actions are so important for a place like Cape Cod, where 99 percent of businesses have 50 or fewer employees and keeping our small businesses strong and vibrant is directly tied to our community’s well being,” said Converse.