How does buying locally impact people in other parts of the world?

Maddie: How does buying locally impact people in other parts of the world?
When you buy local, how does this apply to “think globally, act locally?” And how would buying locally benefit other people in the world?

Answers and Views:

Answer by Smith
There is two possible answers here based on the information you have provided. Buying locally affect people worldwide in terms of economic benefits (i.e. money). If you buy locally as opposed to abroad you are pumping money in to the local economy but at the expense of some foreign economy. The people in the foreign economy are exporting less and thus earning less. Seen as what is important is your own local economy, this just doesn’t seem important. I thus assume your question concerns the environment. If it is environmental, the answer is that buying locally as opposed to foreign results in less damage to foreign economies. Foreign, poor countries tend to pollute more than richer economies do when producing the same product. Another thing to consider is that if buying from some foreign country such as china, the labour conditions maybe a lot poorer than local production ones. Workers tend to be exploited in place like China but not in places like the UK or USA. Well not on the same scale at least.

By the way, think globally, act locally basically means that you should have a global outlook for the company’s products but when operating in these individual countries you should be thinking as a local firm would do. You should take in to account the local customs, culture, and traditions and not expect to be able to implement some sort of one size fits all strategy. Every country is different. They have different attitudes to different products. They have different ways of doing things. The company should expect to alter the product slightly depending on which country they are selling in.