A newly released survey reiterates that Nevada County residents make nearly half their purchases out of the area or online, but economic leaders are gearing up for a "buy local" campaign to avert further leakage.

"Be Local, Buy Local" is the campaign to be unfurled in November to capture more dollars from area residents, business leaders announced Thursday.

The Nevada County Shopping Survey polled 434 people online, mostly in Grass Valley and Nevada City. Respondents said they do 52 percent of their shopping here.

But better prices and selection send them to Auburn, Roseville, Yuba City, Sacramento, the Internet and elsewhere for 47 percent of their shopping, with 1 percent unexplained.

Yet 95 percent of the respondents said shopping locally was important to Nevada County's economy and jobs base. The survey was conducted and compiled by the Nevada County Community Leadership Institute through a link to TheUnion.com.

"We have businesses that have to look at their product mix, their hours and service," said Howard Levine, executive director of the Grass Valley Downtown Association and the buy local campaign leader. The campaign committee also has representatives from the Nevada City Downtown Association, both cities' Chambers of Commerce, the county's Economic Development Council and local government, Levine said.

The campaign will eventually use a Web site to tell retail, agricultural and professional businesses what consumers here want, Levine said. In turn, the campaign also will educate purchasers that businesses here support schools, charities and Nevada County's nonprofit organizations.

"The whole idea is that people would shop for more things locally (if there were) better selection, better service and longer hours," said Chuck Neeley, chief executive officer for the Economic Development Council.



Clothes, food bought down the hill

Survey respondents agreed with Neeley, according to the leadership institute.

"The overall perception of those surveyed is that Nevada County needs more nonboutique, practical shopping with more parking and better customer service and variety in order to encourage more local shopping," the institute's report said.

"It did matter to residents that shopping be done locally. However, ease of shopping online and better prices and selection often took them out of the county," the report said.

When asked why, 63 percent said better prices drove them elsewhere, 58 percent said lack of selection sent them "down the hill," and 47 percent said they could not find what they were looking for here. Almost two-thirds of the respondents lived in Grass Valley or Nevada City, with the rest living in the county's outlying areas.

Consumers said clothing was the most frequent type of purchase made out of county. The survey asked respondents to not include grocery purchases in their comments, but "many respondents chose to report such purchases, and it appears to be a significant contributor to out-of-county shopping," the institute said.

"Other frequent out-of-county purchases include household items, computer and software supplies, home improvement items and furniture."

Many people are not aware they can find those items in Nevada County, and that will be a target of the upcoming campaign, Levine said. He added that one businesswoman had already responded to the survey Thursday by looking into staff changes and staying open on weekends to attract more consumers.

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To contact Senior Staff Writer Dave Moller, e-mail davem@theunion.com or call 477-4237.



Shopping survey comments
To see verbatim comments about the shopping survey, log on to: www.grassvalleychamber.com/images/surveyverbatims.pdf.