“Shop local” is one of those phrases that feels unquestionably positive. It appears on posters, council campaigns, and social media posts, usually with good intentions. The idea is simple: support your local economy rather than large, distant corporations.
But there is an assumption quietly embedded in how the phrase is commonly used, and it is worth examining.
In practice, “shop local” is often treated as meaning shop on the high street. Physical premises. Visible shopfronts. Bricks and mortar businesses you can walk into. Anyone operating outside that model is frequently left out of the picture entirely.
That definition once made sense. It makes far less sense now.
Local businesses do not all have shopfronts
Across the UK, many genuinely local businesses operate primarily or entirely online. They may be sole traders working from home, small teams selling through their own websites, makers using digital platforms rather than physical premises, or hybrid businesses combining online sales with occasional in person trading.
These businesses are still local. They are owned locally, sustain local livelihoods, pay UK taxes, and often source services and materials from nearby suppliers. The fact that customers reach them through a browser rather than a door does not make them any less part of the local economy.
Yet when “shop local” messaging is repeated, these businesses are often invisible.
Why this distinction matters
This is not a semantic argument. It has practical consequences.
Operating a physical premises in many parts of the UK has become increasingly expensive and risky. Rent, business rates, energy costs, insurance, and staffing can place shopfronts out of reach for many small businesses. For some, trading online is not a preference but the only sustainable option.
There are also accessibility realities. Not everyone can easily visit the high street due to disability, caring responsibilities, limited transport, or irregular working hours. Local online businesses allow people to support their community without those barriers.
When “shop local” is framed narrowly, it risks becoming less about supporting local people and more about preserving a particular business format.
Online does not mean money leaving the area
There is a persistent assumption that buying online automatically means money leaving the local economy. That is only true when purchasing from large national or multinational platforms.
When the business itself is local, online spending still circulates locally. Profits are spent nearby, services are sourced locally, and income supports people living in the same communities as any physical shop. Taxes are paid into the same system. The transaction happens digitally, but the economic impact remains close to home.
If the goal of “shop local” is to keep money circulating locally, excluding local online businesses undermines the very purpose of the message.
Ownership determines where money goes, not the method of sale.
Online businesses are not the death of the high street
There is a widely held belief that online businesses are responsible for the decline of the high street. It is an understandable conclusion, but it confuses cause with consequence.
For many independent businesses, operating online is not a strategy to undermine physical shops. It is a response to rising rents, business rates, energy costs, and long term financial risk. For some, including businesses like Onyx Dragon, a high street presence is simply unaffordable, regardless of demand or community support.
In many cases, the choice is not between a physical shop and an online one. It is between operating online or not operating at all.
There is also the practical reality of sourcing. Not all products can be obtained locally, particularly for specialist or niche businesses. Even something as mundane as stationery illustrates this. Beyond basic A4 printer paper, many items are no longer available through local suppliers at all. Expecting businesses to source everything locally is often unrealistic, not unethical.
Blaming online businesses for the decline of the high street obscures the real pressures facing independent traders and risks turning local businesses against one another, rather than addressing the structural issues that affect them all.
This is not an argument against the high street
Physical shops matter. They provide visibility, social interaction, and a sense of place. Many communities would be poorer without them, and they deserve support.
The issue is not that high street businesses receive attention. It is that they often receive exclusive attention, as though locality is defined by a lease rather than by contribution, ownership, or community connection.
A local business should not stop being considered local the moment it closes a door and opens a website.
Speaking from experience
For transparency, this perspective is shaped by direct experience. Onyx Dragon operates primarily online while remaining locally owned and rooted in the surrounding community. The business sustains local livelihoods, sources services locally, and contributes economically in the same ways as any physical premises would.
The difference is not in commitment or impact, but in format. That experience highlights how easily genuinely local businesses can be overlooked when “shop local” is framed too narrowly.
Rethinking what “local” actually means
If the aim is genuinely to support local economies, then the focus should be on who owns the business, where profits stay, who is employed or sustained by it, and how it contributes to the surrounding community.
By those measures, many online businesses are just as local as any shop with a sign above the window.
Perhaps the more accurate message is not simply “shop local”, but “support local people”, wherever and however they trade.
That shift costs nothing, excludes no one, and reflects how business now actually works in the UK.
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