“If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem,” we Boomers used to pontificate back in the day. Fast forward to this coming Monday, the 54th anniversary of the first Earth Day. It’s a good time to reflect that we’re no longer part of the solution (if we ever were), nor even just part of the problem. We are the problem.
Like many of you, I shop at Amazon. Not just a little – a lot, some weeks just about every day. It’s so easy, so addictive. In just the first two weeks of April, our family picked up a set of AirPods, shoe inserts, a heating pad, a seat cushion, chakra crystals, a baseball cap, a neck pillow, a book, sneakers and a pack of microfiber cleaning cloths. In fact, practically everything we need we get online. Why not? Next-day delivery! Favorable prices! Easy return policy! So much stuff to choose from! And let’s face it, some items are hard to find locally.
But if you give it the least thought, you realize online shopping is facilitating a kind of retail death spiral for local stores. Increased online sales = reduced brick-and-mortar retail store sales, which means less profit, fewer employees to help customers and fewer products to provide them.
I’m an accomplice to murder!
Keep it personal
Andy Vick, head of Downtown Evanston, put it more dispassionately: “Shopping local is key to the continued success and vitality of our independent businesses in downtown Evanston,” he emailed me. “While shopping online through a national retailer can be convenient, it significantly diminishes the economic benefit to our local economy, and it deprives individuals of the human interactions associated with an in-person shopping experience.”
That was the same message I got from the Cawley family at Harold’s Hardware, which they’ve operated at 2912 Central St. since 1977. (The original proprietor, Harold Moschin, started the business there in 1953.)
Dan Cawley, 87, is the family patriarch, and he still comes to work six days a week. His kids John and Susan Cawley Warak run the store day-to-day.
John and Susan conceded that the internet has cost them some business. “But we can provide the kind of experienced, one-on-one service the internet can’t,” Susan said. “We’re here to help. We can give you a chance to look, see, feel and talk to somebody who actually knows how to make your project go well. That’s what we’ve always been here for, right in the neighborhood.”
John pointed out that the UPS store next door is jammed with shoppers returning items to Amazon that don’t work, don’t fit or for some other reason they don’t want. (Indeed, a UPS store clerk told me that an astonishing one-third of their business is Amazon returns.)
Billions of pounds in the ground
According to BBC Earth, much of that return volume, 5 billion pounds a year, “simply ends up in landfill. That is, once it’s been shipped all over the country, or even the globe, a few times.”
Then there are the delivery trucks driving everywhere at all hours, burning fossil fuels that pollute the skies to get the stuff to our door, and the forests and trees decimated by the packaging companies to box it all. And the temptation to buy more stuff, a lot of which we don’t really need.
Scott Evans, manager of Lemoi Hardware, which has been at 1008 Davis St. since 1895 and is the oldest continuing operating firm in the city, points out that internet shoppers can buy hardware items at acehardware.com. “People can order online and pick up their purchases at their local Ace hardware store, which in Evanston is us.”
Another local business, Chicago Strings in downtown Evanston, stocks strings for violins, violas, cellos and bass instruments. Owner Jeff Yang told me that despite the assumption that internet prices are lower than retail, “With online stores now required to charge taxes, it’s more of an even playing field. We can match their prices.”
Chris Ferrer, sales manager at Chicago Strings, said another advantage to shopping local is that online stocks are often years old, during which time string quality can degrade. A buyer would have no idea how long those strings have been sitting in a warehouse. “It might be five or six years,” Wang added.
“We have a rapid turnover from Northwestern music students,” Ferrer said. “Our strings are fresh.”
Baked goods have no fear
Some businesses are seemingly immune from the long clutches of the internet. Think barber shops, nail salons, gas stations and baked goods. What shoppers would want to buy their bread, sweets, tarts and pastries online when they can walk into one of the city’s yummy bakeries and buy fresh?
Bennison’s Bakery, which has been located at 1000 Davis St. since 1938, even has its own online presence at bennisoncakes.com. That’s because Bennison’s does a lot of shipping, especially during holidays. There were more than 200 orders “from the middle of October through December,” said Blaine Downer, co-owner and manager. “So at our online store people can order from our bakery to your door,” she said. “We want to maintain the bakery’s traditional recipes and nostalgic feel while keeping up with the times.”
Pedro Rodriguez, manager of Evanston PetSmart, 2221 Oakton St., pointed out that people come to the store for all kinds of personal pet services like the grooming salon, pet training, doggy day camp, pet hotel and pet adoptions. “We also have a vet onsite here for most dog and cat needs,” he added.
But many, if not most, other retail products are in Jeff Bezos’ sights. Take books, the original Amazon product. Renowned Evanston author Joe Epstein’s new memoir, Never Say You’ve Had a Lucky Life: Especially If You’ve Had a Lucky Life, has just been published to rave reviews, but is it available in Evanston?
“Alas, don’t know if any local bookstore has begun to carry my new books,” he emailed me. (I resisted the urge to post the Amazon link.)
But lo and behold, his book is available locally.
Books are a local treasure
“We carry Joseph Epstein’s new book,” confirmed Bookend & Beginnings’ owner Nina Barrett in an email. “We always carry books by local authors when we see them in the catalogs of the publishers we regularly do business with. We’re also aware of people’s perception that they can get things ‘cheaper’ on Amazon, and we try to point out that when people spend their dollars on Amazon, those dollars go to support a lot of practices that don’t ultimately benefit their community, including the environmental impact I’m guessing you’re focusing on in your article like those delivery trucks emitting all that pollution, and the excess packaging that immediately gets thrown away. (An extensive exploration of all the ways Amazon negatively impacts communities can be found in the book How to Resist Amazon and Why, which we also carry.)
“By spending those dollars at a local bookstore,” Barrett went on to say, “people are supporting a local institution that creates community and foot-traffic in our downtown, hosts events for many local authors, and generates critical sales tax for the community. So we urge people to think about the ultimate meaning of getting their books ‘cheap’ before ordering from Amazon.”
(Amazon accounts for about 40% of all online sales, or some $492 billion, and 6.6% of all retail sales in the U.S., according to eMarketer.)
Betsy Haberl, co-owner of Booked at 506 Main St., also carries the new Epstein memoir: “It’s here on our featured shelf right now.”
She said one of the store’s main goals is to re-invest in the community. “We do a lot of work with the library and the city’s schools. We donate books we can’t sell to the school PTAs, so they can raffle them off for fundraising. We’re keeping these books out of the landfill, and the funds they raise help provide resources and amenities the schools wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford,” said Haberl.
Booked was invited to the Evanston Public Library’s recent Blueberry Awards honoring the best children’s books about the environment, nature, climate change and sustainability – “and now we’re featuring those titles in our store.”
Regarding prices, Haberl conceded that Amazon and other online sellers “undercut independent bookstores. If we matched their prices, we’d be losing money in many cases. But what we provide is something they don’t: an incredible value for the community. We offer story time and many other family events, and we’re a safe place for anyone who needs to be with good books among friendly faces. In short, we’re a community space and Amazon is not. Our primary mission is to provide an important service to Evanston.”
At Squeezebox Books, 743 Main St., owner Tim Peterson said the store sells new and primarily used books, as well as new and used records. “Folks bring us their second-hand books and records to keep them in the community and out of the landfill, and we do a booming business at it.” He said the store also offers in-store credit for trading, “keeping the positive cycle of reuse through swaps.”
Aside from books, jewelry is another market segment highly vulnerable to internet poaching. According to Digital Commerce 360, online jewelry sales reached $5.63 billion in 2022. At Virag Jewelers, 703 Main St., which in 2026 will celebrate its 90th anniversary as a family-owned business in Evanston, third-generation owner Peter Virag told me, “We do all sorts of sales in jewelry, both fine and inexpensive, as well as repairs. And we can provide personal services, which the internet can’t, such as sizing watches and bracelets for free when purchasing from the store. We service warranty repairs as well. We have merchandise in-store or which can be obtained from suppliers in many cases within a day or two, to show people the items they want. What you view online is often quite different from what people actually receive. There’s no substitute for seeing it in person.”
So no excuses, people! Buy Evanston, and get personal service and attention! Faster pickups! Far less pollution and deforestation! A virtuous feeling even if it might cost a few extra bucks!
Celebrate Earth Day – and every day – by doing yourself, your city and your planet a big favor: shop local!
Show your support: The City of Evanston will celebrate Earth Day with a free special festival including games, volunteer opportunities and food trucks from noon to 3 p.m. Saturday, April 20, at Ingraham Park.
The earth will be fine. Humankind is another story.
I’m a Baby Boomer, and remember when we were younger that we disliked having generalizations applied to us. I still object to this habit of some people. I certainly object to it when “one of us” uses it about us. This “we are the problem” certainly doesn’t apply to all Baby Boomers – or to all people of any age group.
I do shop local both in Evanston and closer to my residence in Chicago. I also shop online, partly an evolution from when I had to shop by mail-order to find things not available in person local stores. For example, I’ve been buying from L.L. Bean since I was a teenager – decades before they built some local stores, which, however, still don’t carry everything Bean sells.
The first Earth Day was a day of education and protest. We’ve had some victories to celebrate since then, but I don’t treat Earth Day as a mere day to “celebrate.” The fighting, and education, continues.
Sometimes you hear the complaint that “local is more expensive” but when you factor the cost of transportation and your time, going out of your way to the big box is pretty costly too! Plus you can fit a walk, jog, run or biking into a local errand and that’s additional dividends!
Great article, Les, thanks for the reminder.
Support our local merchants!