I am, admittedly, a bit late in coming around to my second word of the year for 2014, as it’s already been done.
Oxford Dictionaries crowned locavore (n., a person who’s diet includes as many locally grown or produced foods as possible) as its Word of the Year in 2007.
Yet, I don’t think the nationwide obsession with shopping/eating/sourcing local has waned in the seven years since the coronation of locavore. If anything, it’s become more important. Thus “local” is my second choice for a word that has been important to retail in 2014. My first, in case you missed it, was omnichannel.
A while back, I blogged here about the problems facing e-tailers Blue Nile and Amazon. Part of the article mentioned Amazon’s then-ongoing (but since-resolved) war with publisher Hachette, a row that caught hundreds of hard-working writers in the middle.
Frankly, I didn’t care for the way Amazon treated the authors. I used to order books from the site for my book club because it was convenient and slightly cheaper, but I don’t shop Amazon for anything anymore.
I prefer to borrow from the library or buy books at my local bookstore, the Greenlight. It’s a good place to find out about local happenings, including authors who are coming to speak at the store, and get out from behind my computer to interact with other live human beings; a novel idea these days, I know.
My personal fondness for small businesses is actually one of my favorite aspects of working here, and likely why I’ve stayed so long. Jewelers are great people, and I’ve learned a lot about small business owners today by talking with them.
I can’t be the only person who feels this way, and that’s why, if I owned a jewelry store, I’d definitely keep stressing that local advantage: We are a local store that supports your local community and is owned and/or staffed by people who live locally.
