What was the last item you bought from a small business?

That’s a question I posed on my facebook page yesterday.  In hindsight, I should have specified, “not counting restaurants and service providers” because it’s not particularly out of the ordinary to patronize non-chain restaurants, and places like dry cleaners are still generally individually-owned, so some of my friends’ replies were “lunch” or “the parts for a luggage repair.”  Others included sheet music, a bracelet, a handmade necklace, craft-show mittens and scarf, and Magic the Gathering cards.

But the reality is that very few items are sold by small businesses any longer.  Our local “downtown” once contained a used bookstore, a thrift store, a bicycle shop, an independent men’s clothing shop — and that since we moved into the area in about 2000, so I’m not being nostalgic about the distant past.  Now the businesses generally consist of restaurants, both individually owned and chains; various upscale home decor and clothing boutiques that, to be honest, I’ve never stepped foot in; and some service providers — banks, yoga and other fitness studios, a shoe repair shop.  The thrift shop moved to a larger location, but recently closed down because they couldn’t compete with Goodwill and the Salvation Army.  The bookstore has been gone for a while now.  The bike shop’s owners closed with the statement that they needed to get 9-5 jobs for the sake of their family.  (Though, to be sure, there are still other nearby bike shops which are locally-owned.)  The clothing shop’s owner retired.  And so on.  Now it seems like, with few exceptions (the Magic the Gathering cards seem about right – comic books and specialized games still seem to be sold largely by small business owners), our encounters with small businesses are more likely to be crafters, or etsy or e-bay sellers.

But maybe your experiences are different.  Please share!

Image:  yes, this is from our London trip – Waterloo Street, in particular – not our own town.  Though, in my defense, we did have a yarn shop in town for a while, before it closed up and the space became a martial arts studio, I think.