‘Local’ is a sweet sounding word, one that has enormous connotations for anyone who lives in and truly loves to call Orange ‘home’.

Calling yourself a loyal local is one thing, being a loyal local is something different. It’s the difference between talking the talk and walking the walk.

There’s been a lot of emphasis placed on supporting locals over recent times and the current drought and economic situation brings that home even more. I have nothing to back up what I’m about say up, but it does sound reasonable if you think about it. I believe there’s more than enough money spent by locals each day to sustain Orange businesses, the problem is it’s not all being spent in Orange businesses. Think about this.

Imagine that it required the people of Orange to spend $1 million dollars a day in Orange businesses to keep them profitable and afloat. That is, to minimise job losses, business closures and the like. Now, suppose between us we do spend $1 million dollars a day but $300,000 of that goes to online shopping? Put like that, it’s not hard to appreciate how $300,000 a day of much needed local spending going elsewhere would be impacting on businesses in Orange, and where that could ultimately lead.

Imagine if your employer suddenly decided to take 30% off what they pay you and your workmates so they could employ another person who was willing to do similar work as you, but for less money. No one treated like that would be happy or think it was fair, but that is pretty much the way many locals are treating our local businesses, often just in the name of saving a few dollars.

As consumers we expect so much from those who serve us, we generally don’t care what it might cost a business owner to provide what we want from them and when we want it, yet in return we give little or nothing, we expect everything  and then when we or someone loses a job, or a business closes their doors, we reason they probably shouldn’t have been in business in the first place or they didn’t know what they were doing.

It’s a sad and sorry tale isn’t it, but at the end of the day, WE, all of us, have the power to change things if we want to. The power to stop local job losses and stop business closures lies totally with us the shopper, not the business owner, not the Council, not the government, no one else, just the shopper. It really is that simple.

Every time we buy something online, we’re in effect, driving another nail into a business owners coffin.

It doesn’t have to be that way, does it?