Business First: Buffalo First, Selling the Idea of Buying Locally

Buffalo First: selling the idea of buying locally

Business First of Buffalo - April 13, 2007

by David Bertola

Business First

 

 

 
Amy Kedron is a co-founder

Jonathon Welch has long wanted to band together with other businesspeople and convince consumers to buy local.

It makes sense. As the owner of Talking Leaves Books, Welch runs a small, locally based retail store. But he said he spends up to 90 hours a week managing two Buffalo stores, which leaves him little time to build such a group.

Enter Amy Kedron, who is working on a doctoral dissertation. She has a focus on a local initiative and tax breaks given to big chain retailers that small businesses typically don't receive. She co-founded Buffalo First, a group that is trying to accomplish what Welch long wanted: promoting local business to local consumers.

Approximately 100 local companies, Talking Leaves among them, have joined Buffalo First. Another is Timothy Herzog's Flying Bison Brewing Co. Previously a member of the Buffalo Niagara Partnership and other chambers of commerce, Herzog said Buffalo First's purely local focus is what appealed to him.

"Some locally owned companies might be members of these other groups, yet have a sales focus outside the area," he said.

Kedron has designed marketing kits that include a window cling, brochures and posters. The aim is to teach consumers how money stays in the region when it's spent here, largely because local business tend to make purchases from other local businesses.

"I'd been talking about doing this for 20 years," Welch said.

Buffalo First membership fees range from $50 to $2,000 a year. Member companies must be privately held, and 50 percent of ownership must live in the Buffalo area. (Kedron said she has stopped accepting new members in order to focus on the existing membership.)

"We structured it so that a company with no advertising budget can participate in an entire year of activities," said Kedron, who recently filed paperwork to have Buffalo First incorporated as a 501c(3) nonprofit.

"Ultimately, what we all get (as small-business owners) is a stronger sense of community," Welch said. "If you accept the argument that the money stays in the area and can work for us as a community, we all will be better off as individual businesses."