Yesterday on my Instagram I posted about my thoughts on supporting small business. This is the post in case you wanna have a read and have a think.
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Right now, small business retail is doing it tough. End of financial year time is always slow anyway, but throw in an election and it’s a ghost town. But yesterday I had to run into Warriwood(shopping centre) where it’s getting bigger and where it’s packed with chain stores and the place is bustling with people. Guys, if the public don’t go into little shops like mine and actually buy something every now and then, we can’t exist. I’m having a sale right now and for a small business to do a sale it means we are selling everything with no profit. $650 a week is my rent alone. There are about a billion other expenses that happen as well on top of rent. So enough with the eye roll when a product in my shop is 9 cents more than an online only store. It’s really really tough right now. Every day we have people at the door and out front gushing about how gorgeous the shop is and how much they love everything in the shop. We are lovely people and treat our customers with warmth and respect and the products are amazing, there isn’t any reason not to visit. Chain stores know how much customers love boutique products. So what they are doing now is copying our designers, mass producing a product and selling the product for $4. When the product we sell is $20. We can’t and won’t compete with it ever. We like good quality original products and we always will. But if you guys don’t buy products from small shops that you think are so adorable, we can’t survive. If it stays at dead as it is right now, and we have to work this hard it’s not worth it. We love what we do, but we literally cannot survive without you. You don’t Have to spent $100 every time you visit, a $5 card or some washi tape is so helpful. We work our ass off to have gorgeous shops for you. You need to keep them alive. Follow our shop account @littlepaperlaneshop to keep up with everything happening in the shop. And if you haven’t had a visit yet, pop in. It’s so lovely in there and you can get fish tacos and margaritas next door at@mx_monavale another rad small business. Stick with us guys. We want to stick with you 
So, as you can see, I was having a chat about supporting your small businesses. Especially retail right now. And I wanted to just elaborate a tiny bit more on it because I can ramble on Instagram, but I can’t really get into the gritty of things on there because they cut off the amount of words you can write 
One thing I wanted to mention was the ripple.
The ripple of supporting small business is HUGE. When you buy a card from a shop like mine, it’s not just my family you support. The card is designed by usually another small design business and they have a family who you support. Majority of our smaller designers use local or Australian printers. And those printers can be small businesses too. So you see it doesn’t stop at Iggy and Mintys two-minute noodles.
The other impact you have is on a global scale. Through little paper lane we sponsor two girls from Rafiki Mwema, the girls have been sexually abused and RM is a rehabilitation home and we are proud to support them. We can only do this, if people continue to shop with us. Right now after a huge fundraiser they are building an amazing house for the older girls and 20 locals have been hired to build the house. There are other projects happening and more will be hired to help. It helps a community in another country. Those girls apart from their therapy, will be educated and go on to do amazing things of the world. Imagine if one of them was the President of their country. You see the ripple is what I wanted to talk about most.
The ripple in small businesses don’t just stop at the shop. We support our local schools and fundraise for surf clubs and donate products for raffles that make huge differences in people’s lives. We see the impact that our small businesses have on the community. And we can’t do it, if you choose to buy a mass produce $1 cards from Kmart that was probably copied by one of our beautiful designers. Ok the $1 card looks tempting because it’s not just tough for us financially, its tough for all. I get it. Sometimes(lately all the time) I need the cheap option too, But choosing to buy a $1 card every single time, means my shop just won’t exist anymore. I get the temptation. And I’m not saying you need to stop buying from Kmart or any chain store. I love a Kmart visit as much as the next person. But there has to be a little bit of balance. Dont buy the $1 every single time. Maybe 1 weekend out of the 4 you need to buy cards for, take the time to buy it from a little guy. You get a great experience and you get a beautiful card that has some soul in it. And you change our lives drastically if you do it. Iggy need braces. And you buying a card once in a while means he can get them.
Simple changes. I parent and work all day, then I work until really late at night. I have super limited time to do food shopping. I also have really limited amounts of money. So I have to do a woolies and coles shop for most things. I go through stages where I try my hardest to shop with a butcher and local grocery shop, but I simply cannot afford it. My rent at home is $41,000 a year. My rent shop is $33,000. My business has to pay for these rents. I don’t have a second income coming from anywhere. Its Steve and I in this business. So groceries are not priority. Which is scary, but that’s reality because I live in an area where rent is fucking expensive. And no I’m not moving. My business is here, my family is all here, I have chronic pain and anxiety, I need my mum and my dad more than you can imagine. I’m not moving 4 hours away so I can pay less rent and my business really wouldn’t work in certain areas, unfortunately. So trust me, when I say I get it why you need to shop at chains. I have no choice but to do it myself. But its a few small changes that as we get closer to christmas, and my shop gets busier and I might be able to pay myself $100 a week, I will do more of and it goes a little something like this.
I like coconut sugar.
I want to eat less regular sugar, and I like my coffee with 2 sugars. So i switched to coconut sugar a while back. So instead of buying coconut sugar at woolies. I buy it from the local health food shop when we go in to gaze over the crystals with the kids. It’s a couple dollars more. But its a small thing, and I am trying. We buy ‘real milk’ its a couple dollars more, but it helps our farmers who are also small businesses. When Iggy or Minty have a party to go to, we buy a little present from a cute small shop. Sometimes the Lego is a few bucks more, but you get a chat and a smile and usually get it wrapped. USUALLY FOR FREE with that Lego and that’s worth more than anything. Ps we totally gift wrap for free. I wonder if Target wraps Lego for free these days;)
You see, I get it. I get it A LOT. Its taken us 4 years to save for a holiday that some people would be able to pay for after working for 3 months. My friends are going on 2-3 big trips a year without blinking an eye. I get it. I get it so so hardcore. This world is hardcore to us sometimes. Especially in Australia. YES we are a fucking lucky bunch of fuckers. We are not in war, we are not having our homes bombed, we are safe from mass shootings every week. We really are lucky. But we are doing it fucking hard as well. It’s in different ways yes, but it’s still fucking hard.
The temptation to buy the 4 pack of ‘washi tape’ from target is so much more enticing, than buying one roll from me for the same price. But you get the real japanese washi tape from me. not mass-produced tape that is not made up of the same materials as washi tape. You get to learn about where washi tape came from me. You get its story. Its origin, what you can do with it. The amount of times Ive styled an entire party for a person while we have a chat, I could have my own freaking party styling business, but i don’t, I just want to help YOU. You get to laugh and a story and a human and you feel warm in our shop. You get to be the most important person in the world when you are with us in our shop.
Chains serve their purpose. I get it. But Steve just hand delivered envelopes to a person’s house after work tonight because the post man took too long and he didn’t want our customer to have to drive all the way back in and they really needed them. Target doesn’t give a shit if your product you ordered didn’t arrive on the day it was meant to, and they sure as fuck won’t deliver it to your door in person with an apology.
If you shopped more with us, I would be able to shop more with small businesses too. And then those small businesses would be able to shop with more small businesses and the ripple just gets bigger and bigger and do you know what happens when an economy booms from small business!?!!? YOU guys reap the benefits. The ripple will turn into a freaking tsunami and wash over this country with glorious communities thriving. Can you imagine!?
You hear people saying, ‘well at least you have a roof on your head’. . .yes that’s true. I work until 2 am to pay for rent I can’t afford. But true. We are lucky. But it’s very very hard-working like this, when you don’t make a dollar. Imagine if you and your partner worked at Kmart from 6am in the morning until 2am at night?!? The breaks you have are more working in the form of cooking food for smaller people, and parenting that’s the ‘breaks’ you get from your shift. Then imagine that you have to give the government shitloads of money to gst, and tax and every other fucking thing they make you pay. Imagine doing a 16-20 hr a day job, and you never ever get paid for it because Kmart want you to pay the rent with that money. It doesn’t quite seem right does it?! But that’s the reality of small business. We work our asses off for kind of not much. We love our job. And if people are shopping then I am happy to continue working like this always because one day, I might get to have a holiday every year with my kids instead of every 5 years.
Every day you will walk past a small business. Go in. Buy a coffee. Grab a handmade toy or some food one day out the week at a small restaurant instead of KFC. If you don’t make the tiniest of efforts, we WONT have a roof on our head.
Buy the coconut sugar from your local.
Thank you ALWAYS to those of you who support and follow and buy from us and any small business. I wish you could know just how amazing and important you really really are to us 
Thank you
Jayde and the Little Paper Lane gang xoxox