Boosting the Festive Spirit: The Importance of Selecting Australian-Made Gifts for Christmas

Selecting the perfect Christmas gift is pretty enshrined as the most stressful ritual of the year—at least when you’re shopping for people who seem to have everything in their lives. It is particularly difficult when trying to shop from the same three global megastores who seem to own every design these days. 

If you can relate to the struggle of having to wade through oodles of plastic or single-use products to find a heartfelt gift for a loved one, then this article is for you. Rather than shopping from the global market, consider taking a closer look at the smaller, local market closer to home. 

If you want to take it one step further, try to buy eco-friendly products for your loved ones this Christmas. This will ensure that you won’t be contributing to the overflow of the landfills around Christmas time. 

Boost the economy by buying local products

Supporting local businesses and creative talent by purchasing their products helps to grow the local economy. If you have noticed a decline of your local shopping centres, seeing the same stores no matter where you go, this is due to a lack of support for local talents. 

Creative spaces in your town or city that genuinely feel great to be in come from unique little oddities and shops run by local, creative people. However, when local designs are priced out of the market by machines churning out fast, easily breakable products, those artists have to pack up and leave. 

Eventually, you end up with a bunch of empty shops down high street, which allows for global conglomerates to step in and take advantage of the gap. Then they’ll sell you the same products they sell everywhere else. 

Unfortunately, the money you spend at these big corporate stores doesn’t return to your local economy because the people who own those businesses don’t live in your area. This means that they won’t contribute to local taxes or the maintenance of your city. 

This ends up creating a sort of ghost town, where you have lots of large malls taking over blocks and blocks of walkable streets, eventually forcing all the creative people to leave and move to a different area where they can try to get their storefronts up and running again. 

And if you think the local economy doesn’t run on local talents like artists, creatives, or young people, you are mistaken. Local economies thrive on events like music and arts festivals. These events draw people to the cities, inviting them to spend their money on restaurants, hotels, local businesses, and eventually move to the area. 

However, without the creative people, those events eventually lose their charm and popularity. And those who attend the festivals are unenthusiastic about buying the same products they can purchase at home. 

As an added benefit, supporting local artists and talents will do more than just keep your local economy afloat and secure the future of the area you live in. It will also guarantee that you’ll find unique Christmas presents—many hand-crafted products are made only once or a few times. 

Why it’s important to buy eco-friendly products

Supporting local talent is essential for the economy, but also benefits the environment. If you are someone who likes to support the environment and be eco-friendly, but you have no real idea how to make an impact, shopping locally can be a great way to start. 

Buying local products is a great way to be eco-friendlier, because it means that you can reduce the unseen environmental costs like international transport. The logistics of importing products increases emissions from flights for cargo, and adds to the cost of fuel. 

Local products are also often made more sustainably, because they aren’t mass produced at the most rapid possible pace. This means artists can really take their time and use sustainable practices, reducing waste and pollution from the production process. 

Shopping for local products at Christmas

Hopefully, this article has convinced you that supporting local talents at Christmas time is a great way to reduce your individual impact on the environment, and to bolster your local economy. 

It can also be a really good way to find a stellar Christmas gift that your loved one won’t have seen advertised or purchased for themselves. 

If you are an artist trying to promote your business at Christmas, consider engaging promotional product companies for Christmas time to get others to invest in your business. 

You can do this with eco-friendly promotional products through Yay!Promos, who have a range of sustainable, customisable promotional products available and ready to go for the Christmas season!