By Kathryn Reed

It pays to shop local.

To keep sales tax dollars in the Lake Tahoe Basin and Truckee areas groups are making it potentially profitable to not leave the hill to shop.

This is the inaugural year for Lake Tahoe South Shore Chamber of Commerce’s shop local campaign, while the North Shore-Truckee area started a similar campaign in 2013.

“We are encouraging people to change their habits by offering some prizes,” Shannon Earley with the South Shore chamber told Lake Tahoe News.

Awareness is the first step – for people to realize shopping outside the area, even online, is hurting local businesses as well as tax coffers.

“When you spend money locally, significantly more​ money stays and circulates in the community through payroll, taxes, and other expenditures, thus strengthening the economic base and well being of our community,” the North Lake Tahoe Chamber says on its website. “Local businesses help sustain vibrant, walkable town centers, which in turn improve​​ water and air quality. Even though things appear​ ​to ​cost less elsewhere, when you​ factor in the cost of shipping, ​driving and your time, a local purchase may be the best choice and helps to ​reduce your footprint.”

According to an economic report released this fall by the Tahoe Prosperity Center, retail spending has not reached prerecession levels in South Lake Tahoe, Incline Village, Stateline and Zephyr Cove. However, Northstar and Squaw Valley are posting numbers better than when the economy collapsed. This is attributed a new mix of retail at those villages.

The South Shore chamber say, “Money spent at a local business generates 3.5 times more wealth for the local economy compared to money spent at a chain.”

The incentive programs are different at each end of the lake.

On the South Shore – which goes from Zephyr Cove to Meyers to Camp Richardson – the shop local campaign requires customers to submit their receipts online. For five weeks the person spending the most money that week will win a prize. Grand prizes at the end of the promotion will go to the overall biggest spender as well as to the person who has the most number of receipts no matter the total.

Shopping does not have to be done at a store that belongs to this particular chamber. There are a few limits on what counts as shopping – insurance and mortgage payments don’t count, buying a new car does.

On the North Shore shoppers collect stickers for every $25 spent at a participating store. Each card with four stickers is then entered into a drawing.

The South Shore campaign runs Nov. 28-Jan. 1. The North Shore dates are Nov. 27-Dec. 24.

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Notes:

·       For more info on the South Shore program, go online.

·       For North Shore-Truckee info, go online.