Holiday Survey of Indie Businesses Garners Widespread Media Attention

A recent national survey indicating that more shoppers deliberately sought out locally owned businesses during the 2009 holiday season has drawn media coverage ranging from Florida to California.

The survey of more than 1,800 independent businesses, including ABA member bookstores, found that holiday sales for independent retailers were up an average of 2.2 percent. The survey, which was conducted by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR), also found that for the third year in a row independent retailers in cities with active "Buy Local" or "Think Local First" campaigns reported stronger holiday sales than those in cities without such campaigns, and nearly 80 percent of business owners surveyed said public awareness of the value of choosing locally owned businesses had increased in the last year.

Among the publications that written about or linked to stories on the survey results are:

• California's San Francisco Chronicle, Sonoma County Gazette, and Press-Enterprise

• Florida's Orlando Sentinel

• Bloomberg.com BusinessWeek

• The Gourmet Retailer

• The National Association of College Stores' NACS Online

• The National Federation of Independent Business' NFIB SmartBrief

• The National Retail Federation's NRF SmartBrief

An article on the survey is also scheduled to appear in February in the magazine Retail Observer, which is sent to about 13,000 retailer subscribers.

Blogs that have picked up the story include:

• One Clear Point

• SMB Blog

• Oakland Grown.org Blog