Message from the Chairman Elect

Lovin’ Local

Visitors love the Ridgefield business community because it bustles. The town has much to offer: From an historic Main Street, to an eclectic Copps Hill area, to the tight-knit community in Branchville. Throughout this 300-year-old town are great restaurants, cool shops, funky boutiques, and all the necessities one would need. Of course the challenge for all of these businesses is to create a strategy for competing with low-cost, low-quality discount stores or with online sales. There are some major benefits to shopping in Ridgefield, and ultimately these benefits help the hardworking people of town.

• Money re-circulates. Some of the money you drop on a stylish new outfit returns in the form of a donation to the middle-school fundraiser. “You’ll never see amazon.com on the back of a Little League t-shirt,” says one merchant.
• Locals create a multiplier effect by using other local businesses. And business owners tend to be from town, so the profits stay in town and not with some faraway corporation.
• Non-profit organizations receive an average of 350 percent greater support from local business owners than from non-locally owned businesses.
• Our one-of-a-kind businesses are an integral part of our distinctive character. They make us who we are.
• Customer service is better. Most local stores are mainly run by owners, who care deeply about their business and their customers.
• The Chamber will continue to promote the notion of Shop Ridgefield and Destination Ridgefield through various initiatives. These include lobbying the Selectmen, Planning & Zoning, the Economic Development Commission, and others, to be sure that the atmosphere is right for a vibrant business community.

- Charles Rio