National Independent Retailers Week (NIRWeek) is July 17-23, 2011.

National Independent Retailers Week celebrates the uniqueness that the locally owned business brings to a community.

Money that is spent in a locally owned business stays in the local community much longer. Why? Because the local business owner purchases more of their supplies, equipment, and inventory from other area businesses. As compared to a mass merchant, you are apt to find that the manager, assistant manager, and staff of a locally owned business are all long time residents of a community. That, as compared to being individuals that 'corporate' has sent into a community.

Enjoy a video about independent businesses, compliments of the Michigan Main Street program.

With a locally owned business, you can often experience shopping with a multi-generation business; a business that the older generation started years ago. One in which the older generation is still a part of the business, but now a second and even a third generation is a part of the business.

You are looking at products and services that have been selected by the local ownership as compared to those that have been selected by a corporate office that may be a thousand or more miles away.
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'Imagine how quiet the forest would be if only the best birds sang. Imagine how boring the forest would be if all the birds sang the same song.

That saying is also applicable to the comparison of a mass merchant and that of a locally owned business.

National Independent Retailers Week is held each year during the week that contains July 21.