PATTERSON, La. — As the holiday season approaches, the City of Patterson’s shopping app reminds people of why it’s important to shop locally.
Kasey Sons, Southern Chaos owner and Patterson native, said adding her business to the "Stampme" app was an easy decision.
"I am all for small town,” Sons said. “I opened the store strictly to give back to Patterson."
Son’s store has 40 St. Mary vendors and said around the holidays she sees a shift in steady business.
"When I first opened we were definitely a lot busier,” Sons said. "I feel like there are a lot of markets around here now here now so it's I guess because I’m vendor based, a lot of my vendors go to the markets so a lot of people just go to the markets."
As for how often Sons sees customers use the app…
"Today actually. We had a couple today, yup its very frequent. We have about one a day use the app."
The City of Patterson Economic and Community Director Holden Murray said after COVID-19 he saw a decrease in shopping locally due to online convenience.
Through a grant from the National League of Cities, the City of Patterson was able to create the “Shop Patterson" program for the holiday season.
The program tracks purchases locally and offers incentives in an effort to keep the community shopping locally.
"Because it's very easy for somebody to go to McDonald's to get something to eat, go to Walmart and nothing’s wrong with going to those places, but we also want to start supporting the local businesses,” Murray said.
“Because nine times out of ten if you need a donation, if you need help with something in a community you're likely to get it from a local business."
As for feedback he’s seen from the community..
"People enjoy using the app, they enjoy collecting the stamp, and they enjoy being able to support local businesses and the businesses because some of them have new customers, they have customers returning, and it's just a fun way to keep incentivizing our citizens to shop locally."
The app is currently set to end after the new year, but Murray is working towards keeping the app going.
