National Small Business Week highlighting efforts of local store owners

OCEAN SPRINGS, Miss. (WLOX) – National Small Business Week highlights the hard work and entrepreneurial efforts of local store owners.

Thousands of locations are sharing the importance of shopping locally despite the rise of online platforms.

‘Shop local and build more money into the town economy ’– It’s a message that’s been around since the 1960s.

National Small Business Week shines a light on mom-and-pop stores dedicated to serving the community like Lee Tracy in Ocean Springs.

“Some of the research that I found was that for every $100 that you spend with a local business, $80 of it stays with the community,” Tiffany Lowery, who is a sales associate at Lee Tracy said.

Lowery encourages customers to continue supporting local shops because it helps the livelihood of the business.

“That goes to rent, employee salary, and the employees are putting the money back into the community,” Lowery said.

It’s the same reality just next door at Charisma.

“You’re supporting our city and our town and you’re supporting actual people instead of companies and people from all across the globe,” Kenzie Roberson said.

Although online shopping is taking the world by storm, Kenzie Roberson said there’s nothing like human customer service.

“You’re reaching out to people,” Roberson said. “ Social media is a big thing and mainly just talking to people and making those connections with your customers because if you make good connections then they’re willing to come back.”

“You get a service that you can’t get online. There’s something about person-to-person service. Having that one-on-one contact, you get to know your customers naturally,” Lowery said.

National Small Business Week wraps up on May 4.

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