Media

Buy Mower/Grow Mower: A Tale of Receipts

What does a sales receipt mean to you and your business? When you think about it, it is everything. It’s our business’s lifeline. With the transactions these receipts represent, our business succeeds. Without them, our business fails. It’s as simple as that.

What does this receipt mean to our customers? It’s a symbol of trust. They give the business their money, the business delivers them the products and services they purchased, along with a receipt that outlines the costs of those goods and services. If they’re dissatisfied for any reason, they bring the product back with the receipt for a refund. It’s their proof they have done their part by paying for the service or product purchased.

Taking this a little further, what does a receipt like this mean to our community? Receipts, such as this, symbolize economic activity. The transactions they represent build our community. They lead to payroll checks, provide funds for capital improvements, pay taxes, build our economy, our community. They represent capitalism, my friends, and prosperity. The more receipts we produce, the better off we are as business owners. The better off our employees are. The better off our community becomes.

A sales receipt represents all that and more. It also represents the central theme of the Chamber’s new marketing campaign, BUY MOWER, GROW MOWER.

The fact of the matter is we need–our entire community needs -- these receipts to succeed. And just as true, for several years now, we have not seen as much retail activity in our community as we could have…no, should have. For years now, Austin and all of Mower County has been losing retail sales to other communities. Lots of sales.

Collectively, the University of Minnesota estimates Mower County businesses have been losing more than $130 million in taxable sales, each year! Include non-taxable items, and the number is even more staggering. The impact on our businesses and our communities is huge. The U of M estimates it is comparable to losing more than 16,000 residents, county-wide. Think about that! Sixteen thousand residents gone!

That’s a big problem. The Chamber wants to address it, reverse the trend, and start bringing those residents, our customers, back.

BUY MOWER, GROW MOWER is a public relations campaign, designed to not only raise awareness as to the problem, but also how everyone benefits when people shop locally. We’ll use sales receipts as a visual link as to how dollars flow through our community, helping to GROW our towns by providing MORE opportunities for everyone in Mower County.

We’ll note how local businesses, supported by local purchases, give generously to charitable causes that enhance everyone’s quality of life.

We’ll note how local businesses, supported by local purchases, provide jobs for family members, friends and neighbors.

And we’ll note how taxes, paid by local businesses and generated through local sales, provide needed revenues for our schools, public services and important projects, such as flood control.

BUY MOWER, GROW MOWER will promote the benefits of shopping locally: Benefits that extend far beyond the retailer to all aspects of our community. It will show how dollars spent here, stay here to create jobs, expand our tax base and enhance our quality of life.

We’re not asking anyone to spend all their dollars in town. That’s not realistic. Instead, we’re only going to ask for a small fraction – just a 10 percent shift back to local businesses. Of course, we hope that percentage will grow. But even if we can shift 10 percent of the dollars spent out-of-town, back to Austin and Mower County . . . we will have made a $20 million impact on our economy.

To make it happen, all we have to do is commit to the ideal, embrace and support the businesses we already have, and reap the benefits. It all starts with a simple pledge to BUY MOWER. A trail of receipts will follow that will lead to more for everyone, and a better life for everyone in Mower County.

Do your part, and take the pledge.