The Downtown Chestertown Association is offering Chestertown Cash for the holiday season in coordination with the State of Maryland’s Shop Maryland for the Holidays program and the national Shop Small effort. The certificates are redeemable at the more than 30 participating shops and businesses in Downtown and Greater Chestertown displaying the Chestertown Cash Welcome Here sign.
The local premium: For every $100 spent at your local independent business, $68 remains in the community, vs. $48 for chain stores and $0 when shopping online. Local shop owners employ your neighbor, buy goods locally, and support local charitable organizations. These added dollars circulate in the local economy and translate into more jobs and economic activity.
Chestertown Cash certificates are available at The Finishing Touch, 311 High Street in Chestertown 410-778-5292, and online at https://www.downtownchestertown.org/. For more information, email [email protected].
Emmett Duke says
It has been a while since I ran a retail business in Chestertown, but I feel competent to offer a suggestion about this incentive to shop locally,
It is a good idea, and should be successful to some extent. But other than the altruistic incentive you mention about more dollars staying locally in small businesses, there is no compelling reason to get people excited about buying Chestertown Cash.
I would like to suggest that if the $20 certificates were to be sold for a 10% or 15% discount, say for 17 or 18 dollars, a lot more people would be interested in buying and either spending the Bucks themselves or giving them as gifts. Most businesses can afford to offer a small discount of this type as an incentive to customers, and people are much more likely to participate if they benefit monetarily.
I love Chestertown and Kent County, and this is just an idea…
Emmett Duke