The Original Shop Local Delmarva

Subscription Scrutiny

2025-09-02T21:39:00.005-04:00

One of the most frequent questions I receive is why there are different levels of monthly subscriptions. The question is usually framed in the context that the business owner does all the work listing their business, and then the listing just sits there. Why should they pay for that? Let's break the justification for subscriptions down into smaller pieces.

You own your business description

A new customer's first impression of your business will be made through your business description on the app. Who better to write that description than you?

"But I'm terrible at writing," you might think.

So are professional writers. Did you know when Stephen King wrote Carrie, he wrote about three pages of his idea for a novel and threw it in the trash? Those three pages included the famous shower scene that led to Carrie being bullied by her classmates. His wife dug those first three pages out of the trash, read them, and threw them on her husband's desk telling him he had something good there and needed to finish the story.

You might be wondering why he didn't like it in the first place. His primary thought was that he felt unqualified to write convincingly from a female perspective. His wife promised him to help fill in the female perspective. Two weeks later, with the help of his wife editing the female perspective, he finished Carrie. The rest is history.

No one expects a business description to rise to the level of a best seller. But King's story (verifiably true, by the way) teaches us two valuable lessons.

We all have a story in us. The story of your business is yours, and yours alone. Only you can tell it honestly.
We aren't perfect at getting the story's tone and perspective right no matter how good of a writer you are. It's ok to seek help where our writing might be weak.

Write your business description. Let it sit for a couple of days. Re-read it and you'll be surprised how many edits you'll make yourself.

If you think it's still not good enough, get your spouse, kids, best friend, or even your neighbor to read it. Their suggestions might help you see your description from different angles.

If you still are doubtful, hire a professional. They've dealt with business descriptions and know what works and what doesn't work. Be aware, though, they might be wrong, or at least not completely on target. They don't know your voice or fully know the tone you want to set for your business.

If you're still in doubt after trying all of the above, there's always AI. This advice comes with lots of

Click pic to enlarge

warnings. The first is you should understand that AI is a tool about as smart as a library. Like a library, AI has all the information it needs to write a business description, but it lacks the human experiences and emotions to write one that will connect with other people.

Bottom line: trust in yourself. Your customers value honesty and a real human face more than they trust a cookie cutter business description.

What about all those subscription levels?

Running an app like The Original Shop Local Delmarva comes with a development cost and a baseline monthly cost. The development cost, at this point as is, has already been paid for. The baseline monthly cost I had calculated as an expense I would be willing to pay for a while as I built and launched the app.

As the app grows, my baseline costs go up. The more people who add themselves to the directory, the more my baseline rates go up once I surpass my maximum number of entries. The more people who use Google maps to find businesses, the more my baseline costs go up. The most expensive cost is the monthly maintenance fee to my developers, who ensure that any Google Play updates (which is, in itself, another baseline cost) are compatible with the app. And I still have to get Apple to accept my app (hopefully at the beginning of next year), which will add to that baseline cost.

I'll be honest here. If everyone decided to stick with the free subscription, I most likely would need to shut down The Original Shop Local Delmarva. To cover all the current and potential costs, I had to come up with a subscription plan.

Ok, you're panhandling. How much should I throw in your cup?

A million dollars would work. But seriously, I'd rather build a new economic model that makes our local communities on Delmarva stronger and more financially independent by relying on our locally owned and operated businesses instead of relying on state, regional, and nationally owned businesses. Ultimately, that is my ten-year goal for SLD, economic independence from outside retailers.

We're in Phase 1 of that development. I built the starting tool, The Original Shop Local Delmarva app. In this phase, I am trying to build a useful and viable app that gives shoppers and consumers the confidence that they are truly supporting Delmarva's locally owned and operated businesses. That is the reason for my stringent requirements to ensure that only locally owned and operated businesses are listed. If potential users of the app see franchises or national chains listed, the app has lost its integrity.

Phase 1 is the ground floor entry point for everyone. Getting listed is free through the Shorebird subscription level. Do it once and then renew it every month and you're done as I keep building the effort behind the scenes. You have nothing to lose except a couple of clicks a month to renew, free. (You can list your business here.)

During Phase 1, you might want to consider the Oriole level. For twenty bucks a month, you get an extra hundred words in your business description plus a link to your website or social media account and a link to your online menu, if applicable. You can always update from your free listing to an Oriole subscription at any time with a few clicks of your mouse.

The Oriole level, available in monthly or annual rates, should cover SLD's monthly baseline costs plus allow SLD to grow and change to better fit your needs. First up will be to change the monthly renewal requirement of free accounts to a biannual, or even annual, requirement. The renewal requirement for free accounts is only to ensure there are no "dead end" businesses, that is, businesses that are no longer operating, and could lead users on a wild goose chase.

Past there, at this stage of development, the other subscription levels offer more, but not all aspects of what I envision to offer are available yet. That means the Osprey and Heron levels might become valuable to you down the road (projected to be maybe 3-5 years from now) as SLD continues to grow. Just like upgrading from free to Oriole is a matter of a few clicks, upgrading to the other levels is quick and easy.

What could possibly justify an Osprey or Heron level subscription?

In my 5–10-year plan for The Original Shop Local Delmarva, I see your business listing as your personal advertising platform where potential customers can discover their locally owned and operated businesses in a "one stop" virtual shopping tour. I believe that in five years, we’ll see a shift in shopping habits: shoppers will regularly browse and buy online, then either pick up in-store or have items delivered. What’s now a convenience practice will become the standard way to shop.

Experts claim that after 2030, only five years from now, AI will see explosive growth we can't even begin to fathom. Doubtful? Look how far AI has come in three years. That means, with AI, for the first time in history, Mom and Pop might be able to effectively compete with the national chains in visibility and service.

I want SLD to be your resource for the rapidly changing technology, economy, and consumer habits coming. You can bet the big-name stores are already on top of it and have plans in place to succeed in the new, evolving economy. Since AI will be available to everyone, not just the Big Boxers, I hope to put Mom and Pop on a level playing field with them through education and visibility.

The two higher subscriptions will offer access to any new AI tools for marketing development, a resource library to learn how to use the new tools, and participation in a "Delmarva Dollar Days" program that is still in its planning stage.

Couldn't I wait until later to sign up when all these other things are in place?

Your participation now will bring the ten-year plan to fruition. It costs nothing to get listed, but that first step builds a directory that others will find useful and start using. The more people who download and use the app, the more valuable the Oriole subscription might become. The more valuable the Oriole becomes, the faster SLD can grow and become a positive economic and political advocate for Mom and Pops on Delmarva.

There are no shop local programs on the regional scale that even comes close to the model I envision for SLD. There are a few efforts that incorporate some ideas I hope to use, but there’s no blueprint for what I hope to build with your help. While plenty of ‘shop local’ campaigns have come and gone, few created real ownership, and none combined media, education, advocacy, and commerce across an entire region. With your help, we’re not following a model; we’re becoming the model.

I hope Delmarva can meet or surpass all other shop local milestones by 2030. By 2035, I hope Delmarva is the model for all other communities to follow.

I can't do it without you. Please add your business to the directory today:

👉 https://businessowner.shoplocaldelmarva.org/login

Please feel free to share this newsletter with anyone and everyone.

If you received this newsletter from a friend and like what you see, please sign up for future issues here:

👉 https://dashboard.mailerlite.com/forms/1461570/152240065949467848/share

And, as always, shop local Delmarva!

Fixing the Leaky Bucket

2025-08-27T22:52:00.003-04:00

When our business leaders, planners, and politicians look at ways to revitalize local towns and rural areas, the usual proposed solutions focus on ways to bring more money into the community. Typical approaches to bringing in money involve promoting tourism, agriculture, corporate relocations and other forms of inward investments. What is often overlooked is the important concept of money flow within the community.

Think of your local economy as a bucket. Bringing in money to your community is like pouring water in the bucket. The bucket is going to have some holes in it and some of the water will leak out. Some of the holes can’t be fixed so you will always have a leaky bucket. The state and federal government will collect taxes, for example. That is a hole that can’t be fixed.

Other holes can be fixed. Residents who shop at a box store, for example, will shop locally if the locally owned store offers the same product or service at a competitive price. A strong shop local movement and messaging encourages more local shopping. Locally owned and operated businesses have more flexibility in offering locally grown produce or locally caught seafood products. Locally owned businesses often fill a niche that chain stores often fail to fill.

The idea of the leaky bucket illustrates the importance of money flow through a community. The longer the bucket holds water, the less frequently the community needs to refill the bucket. All that money flowing in and through the community can be used to sponsor a little league team or build a new park instead of finding new ways to keep the tap flowing into the community.

Let’s put the illustration in simple dollars and cents. Some studies suggest that for every dollar spent at a locally owned and operated business, sixty-eight cents stays in the community. The same dollar spent at a nationally owned store sees thirteen cents staying in the community. In the middle are our locally owned and operated franchises. For every dollar spent with them, forty-eight cents remain in the community.

Now an important concept comes into play, a concept called the multiplier effect.  The sixty-eight cents from your dollar that stayed in your community is spent by that business owner or employee at another locally owned and operated business.  Forty-six cents remains in the local community.  If the person who received the forty-six cents continues the trend of spending locally, the money will pass through seven more hands—for a total of nine of your friends and neighbors—before the leaky bucket has taken it down to two cents.

At the national box store, the employee, who received the thirteen cents in his pay, spends it at another nationally owned business.  Only two cents remain in the community. In effect, the original dollar you spent at the national chain is gone after passing hands to only one of your neighbors or friends.

In the middle are the locally owned and operated franchises. You spend a dollar there and forty-eight cents stay in the community. The business owner spends that forty-eight cents at a locally owned or operated franchise and a quarter remains in the community. Continuing the trend on down the line and that original forty-eight cents would pass through the hands of six of your neighbors or friends before it disappears from the community.

In the real world, it isn’t always practical, and often not even possible, to spend your money exclusively at locally owned and operated businesses. But you do have the power to slow the leaks. Several independent studies have concluded that a 10% shift in our spending habits to support locally owned and operated businesses would create hundreds of new jobs and tens—if not hundreds—of millions of dollars in new economic activity.

You have the power to patch some of the leaks in your local economy's bucket. Here are steps you can take to slow, and maybe stop, some of those leaks:

Whether you're a business owner stocking your store, a contractor stocking your toolbox and truck, or a shopper who needs something different, think local first. Even if you think local once a month, you've taken a big step in slowing the leaks in your community's bucket.
Download The Original Shop Local Delmarva app. Currently, the app is only available for Android devices, but Apple devices are coming soon.
If you are a business owner, get listed in the app. You don't need an Android device to list your business. Once I get Apple approval, the app shares the same database as Google. I'm hoping for approval from Apple around the start of the new year.
Follow The Original Shop Local Delmarva on Facebook and Blogger. Get the latest news and updates before they even hit Cuddles Clipbbord.
Participate on the monthly Shop Local Delmarva Day. Details to be announced on Facebook and Blogger.

Please stay tuned. A lot is coming. As always, feel free to let me know what you want. Email or call me. The Original Shop Local Delmarva app is your app. Help design the app and shape the Shop Local Delmarva movement the way you want it.

Tips on getting listed in the app

2025-06-15T02:10:00.002-04:00

It's not mispelled, It looks like Old English to me.
Please remember Cuddles is doing his best.

When I first started planning the development of The Original Shop Local Delmarva app, I was faced with an initial, but crucial, decision. How should I get locally owned and operated businesses listed? Now that sounds like a very straightforward question, but the answer carries serious implications about what sort of website or company you are dealing with.

Let's take Yelp as an example. Like most online business directories, Yelp scrapes the Internet for businesses, lists them, and then provides a link for the business to "claim" their listing. Until the business finds out that they are listed on Yelp, they rack up reviews unbeknownst to the owners. Any negative reviews go unanswered, which could cost the business new customers.

If you search "Locally owned and operated businesses in [your town], [your state]", you might end up on the site www.chamberofcommerce.com. It might look official to you, but it is not. They, too, scrape the Internet for business listings without the owner's permission. You are expected to know your listing is over there getting reviews, some of which might be negative. Users might believe they are on an official Chamber of Commerce website, but they are not.

And then you have legitimate Chamber of Commerce websites that list local businesses, but their listings include every business that pays their dues to the Chamber. Users have no clue which businesses are truly locally owned and operated as opposed to any business (franchise or nationally owned) with a physical presence in the town the Chamber is located. My Chamber of Commerce, for example, listed a business headquartered in Texas. I'm willing to bet a sizable portion of residents think of it as a locally owned and operated business, but it is not.

My developers gave me the option of scraping the Internet to load the SLD directory. I rejected their suggestion. My philosophy was, and still is, based on a simple idea. Your business listing is yours and you should have complete control over where, when, and how it should be used.

I didn't develop The Original Shop Local Delmarva to make money other than what is needed to run the app. I set out to level the playing field for the Mom and Pops so that they can effectively compete against the franchises and national corporations. (There is a caveat in what I just said about franchises, but I'll cover that in a future article. If you are a franchise owner, please feel free to contact me.)

I reckon with what I just said above, either I have much longer range of views for SLD (I do) or I'm getting tired of typing (I am). But you, the business owner, and you, the user, share the SLD driver's seat. I'm just the navigator. Bots roaming the Internet best stay in the marked crosswalks.

With that said, please allow me to address some of the sign-up concerns I have heard and the workarounds you can use to get listed without feeling like you might be compromising your privacy concerns or feeling overwhelmed by the technical requirements.

What's with this W9 requirement?

The W9 helps me confirm that your business is both real and locally operated. In reality, the W9 only lists your company (verifying you're not sixteen-year-old Sally selling hair ribbons out of her bedroom) and business address (your headquarters aren't outside of Delmarva). In other words, your W9 doesn't share important information that might be a privacy invasion. The W9 simply states the information that is already public information and is used regularly in business-to-business transactions. It is one of a few tools I use to ensure the integrity of the directory. The tools aren't perfect, but all are a matter of public information. Some of those same tools are used by those scraping websites I mentioned.
What if I simply don't want to send you my W9?

Don't send it. Contact me instead. You can email me at support@shoplocaldelmarva.com or call me at 410-463-4196. (If I don't answer, please text me. Some day I might figure out how to set up my voicemail.)

It's not too hard to convince me you are locally owned and operated. Once I'm convinced, I'll send you a properly formatted form to substitute in the W9 field.

Here's a thought for you. You want to get listed, but how do you know I am a locally owned and operated directory? You don't until you talk to me.
What if I'm a home-based business and want to conceal some private information like a home phone number or address?

The address and phone number fields are not cross referenced by the app. You will want to make sure your town, state, and zip code are accurate to ensure your potential customers at least know the general area your business is located. Your phone number can be real or masked. If, for some reason, you don't want anyone to know your phone number, you can enter 555-555-5555 and you're good to go. My developers, however, assure me that they followed proper protocols to protect your information from bots that roam the web looking for phone numbers and emails. While an incomplete street address might go unnoticed, a masked phone number or email address may raise some eyebrows among your potential customers.
Where is my information stored?

Any information you share with SLD is stored in the cloud until you delete your listing. The only people who have access to your information is my development team and me. For example, if you submit your W9, it is stored in the cloud that only my developers have access to. The app then emails me a copy so I can review it. I review the copy and then delete it. None of your information is shared or sold to anyone.

Oh, and once my developers send me a contract completion form to sign (it's in the works), even they won't have access to the cloud and your information anymore.
I'm busy and don't have the time to figure out the technical aspects of listing my business. What do I do?

Simply email me (support@shoplocaldelmarva.org) with a description of the problem you are having. Together, we'll get you listed.

I'm very big on privacy. When new technology hit the market in the form of the telephone, privacy rights were immediately raised. In 1928, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Olmstead v. United States that wiretapping phone lines didn’t violate privacy rights because the lines were public property. Justice Louis Brandeis dissented, famously stating that the Constitution protects "the right to be let alone." It took another almost forty years for the US Supreme Court to reverse that 1928 ruling. During Nixon's presidency, the US Supreme Court ruled that a warrant is required to tap the phone lines.

While our Congress hasn't exactly caught up with the Digital Age, I strive to operate in the digital world under the strictest of privacy considerations that I think should be, not what is. My guiding principle is you have a right to be left alone. My app relies on third party entities, and I try to make sure the third parties follow the same principle.

Don't you just hate it when you're enjoying a chicken neck and a net scrapes you up and throws you in a basket? You won't find any of that tomfoolery going on around here.

Grow with The Original Shop Local Delmarva

2025-06-06T00:18:00.003-04:00

Yes, I know he spelled it "Clipbbord", but Cuddles is doing his best.

Anything worth building takes a lot of careful planning and time. Sure, I could throw some straw together and call it a house or some sticks and call it a mansion, but neither creation would stand for very long. We all know it is the house of bricks that stands strong for just about anything that blows its way.

I started The Original Shop Local Delmarva (SLD) fifteen years ago. I originally built it out of straw, namely on the Facebook platform. While that Facebook page is still going strong today, it wasn't strong enough to support the shop local movement on its own. So I built a website.

The website offered stronger support, until the hosting site upgraded its servers. The website crashed and my efforts to fix it ensured it stayed crashed. I followed the hosting company's instructions, but nothing worked. I faced taking on two possible solutions: rebuild the site from scratch or build something new that would be stronger and more useful for supporting locally owned and operated businesses. That something new was an app.

Cuddles' Notes
You can find the app
in Google Play Store.
Apple version coming soon

I maintained (and still maintain) the Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100057578195068

Right now, my website is a simple landing page:

https://businessowner.shoplocaldelmarva.org/

The site is a page where you, the business owner, can list your business with the ability for you to update and add to it anytime you want.

When you load your information, it is instantly uploaded to the SLD app. There's no need for a shopper or tourist to visit a website and plan out their shopping trip ahead of time. They can pull out their phone, click a few options, and find their locally owned and operated businesses near them...or up to fifty miles away, on the spot, no pre-planning required.

While I saved the money over the last ten years to get the app built, I also developed a three, five, and ten-year plan of how to grow the app and the shop local movement. Like any business plan, it sets goals.

In the three-year plan, the goal is to get 500+ businesses listed and 1,000+ users per day. The first three years are mostly building the foundation. The whole Shop Local Delmarva movement can't happen without a solid base of participating businesses and users.

In the five-year plan, the goal is to develop your listing as your personal advertising platform. That's where the subscription levels will become important. By five years, I aim to have a skeletal advertising design in place with room to expand for the AI technology coming.

We're beginning to see what the AI technology can do. Its capabilities are predicted to take off like a rocket after about 2030. Gone will be the days when big corporations were the only ones who could afford flashy advertising. Mom and Pop will be able to create a catchy, two-minute video over their morning cup of coffee at little to no cost.

In the ten-year plan, the goal is to have 75% of the locally owned and operated businesses listed with usage levels rivaling, or even surpassing, other business directory sites like Yelp or Angies List. I also have a lot to learn in the next ten years because I'd like to see The Original Shop Local Delmarva (that's all the locally owned and operated businesses and supporters) gain the political clout needed to cut the red tape in starting and running a small business, receive tax incentives on par with the national corporations, be eligible for health insurance benefits on par in cost and benefits as what the big box stores have, and even qualify for wholesale pricing that narrows the gap between Mom and Pop and the out-of-towners.

Cuddles' Notes
You can list your
business regardless
of the phone you own

The Original Shop Local Delmarva’s plans and goals may sound like a tall order of lofty dreams, but none of it can come to fruition without your support. It all starts with listing your business.

Get listed today: https://businessowner.shoplocaldelmarva.org/

The Original Shop Local Delmarva is growing!

2025-04-26T00:20:00.000-04:00

Before we could build something, we needed a tool. I built The Original Shop Local Delmarva app to be that tool.

Now we’re building something together using that tool. We're building a stronger local community and a louder voice for our locally owned and operated businesses. But we needed another tool to tie the app, businesses, and people together.

So, I built another tool. Over in the right-hand column you'll see a newsletter sign up form. With this tool you will be in the loop as The Original Shop Local Delmarva grows over the next ten years. Yes, The Original Shop Local Delmarva has a five-year plan and a ten-year plan. Its ultimate goal: build a model of a shop local movement that builds sustainable local economies and communities that local communities across the country will want to emulate.

Please sign up for the newsletter to stay in the loop. Your email will not be sold or used by anyone other than The Original Shop Local Delmarva to deliver you our newsletter once a month or so.

The first issue will be coming out in about a week. The first issue will explain how to list your business, where to find help, how to advertise with The Original Shop Local Delmarva, and will start sharing the long range dream The Original Shop Local Delmarva holds. Don't miss it! Sign up over there on the right today.