If you’ve been thinking about spending less money at “big box” retailers this year, you’re not alone. A new survey of 2,000 American adults revealed that 76% say they’ve been deliberately trying to shop local since the pandemic began, and plan to do more so this year.
This effort to help small businesses was being done across all demographics, according to the non-scientific poll commissioned by GoDaddy, although Gen-Z and millennials embraced it the strongest. Fifty-four percent of Gen-Z and 60 percent of their younger counterparts say they “couldn’t care less” about stepping foot in a large chain store again.
Three in five of all respondents say they’ve found items at small businesses that they couldn’t find at big box stores: 55 percent were able to snag homemade goods; 40 percent found fashion items and jewelry, and 36 percent were able to buy toys that they couldn’t find at the chain stores.
On the flip side, 29 percent say they don’t like dealing with small shops’ limited hours compared to the big chains, and 18 percent don’t like having to pay to have items shipped from smaller shops to their homes.
Survey questions, methodology and results have not been verified or endorsed by ABCNews or The Walt Disney Company.