With the festive season in full swing, the Mount Gambier Chamber of Commerce is urging the community to shop local to support Limestone Coast businesses.


Mount Gambier Chamber of Commerce president Candice Fennell said shopping local is more important now than ever as retail and hospitality businesses feel the pinch.


“They’re finding it hard to get workers, they are finding it difficult to get people through the door and … the chamber really want to try and support everybody to shop local this Christmas,” she said.


“What we have certainly noticed is our local businesses are certainly competitive so they’re competitive now with the online shopping platforms.


“I think that people would be surprised that if they did shop locally, how much that competition is there for them to do well and get people through the door.


“I think it is really important because not only is it benefitting the businesses but we need to be mindful that all the businesses in town employ our local people.


“The more we are helping drive business into our local community, the more we are going to get that flow on effect of then helping their workers.


“Certainly, it has a significant impact for small business but equally all of our large businesses in town, while they might be franchised outside of our region, they’re all employing local people.”


Ms Fennell said that in the last three to six months, the ongoing pressures faced by local businesses had become glaringly obvious.


“We have seen the sort of peripherals of the challenges that businesses are coming to us to say, ‘we have a level of a struggle and we are finding it difficult to do business’,” she said.


“The cost of doing business is really, really hard for business owners, so they are finding the products they used to buy at a particular price have increased significantly, and utilities like their electricity and their gas has skyrocketed.


“We are also seeing that flow on effect with some of the businesses closing or moving to different spaces; some of those factors are to do with the rent of the shops in town or the availability of shops in town to rent.


“It has been a very vibrant CBD; we want to keep it that way, but seeing the few empty shops creeping in at the moment is a bit of a worry.


“If there is one thing we can do as a chamber it is send a message to everybody that ‘our one little bit, our one thing that we buy in one shop is giving them another bit of support’.


“I think that at the end of the day what we need to do is help our business community see the confidence we have in them for them to stay in business and that’s really important.


“We went through a stage where there was confidence from the business owners.


“There were lots of new shops opening and lots of new businesses coming to fruition but what we need to do is help those businesses and show that we do have confidence in them by shopping with them.”


Ms Fennell said due to the success of the Christmas Wrap Up event and feedback from businesses, the chamber is exploring the possibility of holding similar events throughout the year.


“One of the things that we are exploring is to flow on some of the Wrap Up style of shopping throughout different parts of the year, rather than just waiting until Christmas,” she said.


“We saw that flow on go on really well with the caravan and motorhomes show that came to Mount Gambier and we did a similar style there with that and it worked really well.


“I think to try and boost our local shops and the more we can host those sorts of events the better.


“I think that just gets it front of mind for people to shop local but also for an opportunity to say, ‘we have got these other times where you can get into the shops and have an opportunity to visit our local community shops’.”


Santa Claus is not the only one visiting the Limestone Coast this holiday season, with an influx of tourists expected due to the upcoming statewide school holidays and family festivities.


“We have certainly noticed there is a lot of people still visiting the region. Hopefully that means that some of the tourism side of things picks up in our outlier areas like Port MacDonnell for example,” Ms Fennell said.


“There is always a lot going on, I know there are people coming into our streets and our shops but we really need to go that next step and encourage them to buy.


“We have certainly seen Mount Gambier becoming a destination for people to come to. We know that when people come to our city, they will also go to the outlier areas from a tourism perspective and really visit the region well.


“I think the Limestone Coast has so much going for it so I can really see our whole region being on the map now as an actual place and a destination that people want to come to and they love travelling here.


“People leave here with really good thoughts and really good experiences.


“I think all the different organisations supporting the tourism side of things is paying off for sure.”


Ms Fennell told The SE Voice that lately there has been an unfortunate increase in shoplifting locally.


“Theft is a really high thing in the community at the moment so it is something we have had some business owners reach out to the chamber about to say they are very concerned about the increase of theft in their shops ,” she said.


“We are finding that it is quite widespread, it is along all different areas of Mount Gambier, it is not just in the main street and it is a bit of a worry so we will probably look into what sort of things we can help by way of connecting shop owners with police and seeing what other things we can do to help there.


“At the end of the day it is a worry because businesses are doing it tough so just as much as if we are putting money into them, if people are then taking things without paying for them that’s a significant loss.”