Consumer spending in the age of Amazon, and what businesses are doing to keep community loyalty
After two years of running Novel Bay Booksellers, owner Liz Welter launched a website in 2020 and entered around 1,000 book titles in just three days when the pandemic hit. The move gave customers the option to have books mailed or even personally delivered by Welter herself.
Today, Welter still offers those services and is seeing real benefits. Some visitors order books online before arriving in Door County, so their selections are waiting for them on vacation. Others request shipments from as far away as overseas.
“I think the people that buy books here are so loyal that they wouldn’t think of buying books from Amazon,” Welter said.
Her experience reflects a broader reality for small businesses in Door County. As consumer behavior continues shifting toward online shopping, local retailers are adapting, while residents weigh the convenience of e-commerce against the value of shopping locally.
Michelle Lawrie, executive director of the Door County Economic Development Corporation (DCEDC), said supporting small businesses is more important than ever.
“We’re trying to really focus on how important it is to shop locally and what it means to your community, because those businesses survive based on people buying from them,” Lawrie said.
Despite the rise in online shopping, Door County’s retail economy remains strong. According to the Wisconsin Department of Revenue, taxable retail sales increased by 0.31% from May 2024 to May 2025. More tellingly, the county’s 0.5% sales tax collections rose 10.23% year-to-date, with July distributions up nearly 27% over the same month last year.
Taxable retail sales remain slightly higher than in previous years, with a 0.31% increase from May 2024 to May 2025. This is a significantly smaller increase than other sectors, with the increase for all sectors being 3.89% from May 2024 to May 2025. Source: DCEDC report.
Residents Balance Online and Local Spending
Behind these numbers are the choices of everyday residents. Some, like Sevastopol resident Susan Cubar, intentionally spend their money close to home.
Cubar buys most of her groceries, gas and gifts locally, but still receives about six small packages a month when she cannot find a product at a local store. She also receives a weekly shipment of three meal kits from Home Chef.
“The [online] delivery charges for the food varies depending on how much you buy and the quality of the package that you buy,” she said. “They’re not cheap, but the convenience for that overrides the cost.”
Cori Shanahan of Sister Bay shares that philosophy.
“I do believe in supporting local businesses and I want to buy up here and keep the restaurants going, keep grocery stores and the shops open,” Shanahan said. “I try to support them as much as possible, so I only buy the things that I know I can’t find up here.”
Shanahan said she received four packages this week, for example, with three of those being products she couldn’t find in local stores.
Local business owners try to tip the local versus online balance in their favor. Steve Hamming, who owns Harbor Hardware in the Village of Egg Harbor, said he regularly asks customers if they found everything they were looking for. He then adjusts his inventory accordingly.
“I get a huge amount of new stuff every week,” he said.
Some businesses encourage local shopping in creative ways. At Novel Bay Booksellers, Welter keeps a “swear jar” at the counter – not for bad language, but for mentions of “Amazon,” “Kindle” and “Bezo’s dollars.”
“I did it as a public awareness thing,” she said.
Customers frequently drop $5 in the jar, with proceeds supporting the Door County Bookmobile.
Selling The Experience, Not Just The Product
Lawrie said one of the ancillary benefits of buying local is the multiplier effect. According to the DCEDC, citing research from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, for every $100 spent at local independent businesses, it generated $45 of local spending, while $100 spent at a big-box chain led to only $14 in local spending.
While the multiplier effect can be quantified, the shop-local idea is about value and competition, according to Todd Barman, University of Wisconsin-Extension community economic development specialist.
Based on the county-wide 0.5% sales tax collection, demand and consumer spending remain strong with a year-to-date growth of 10.23% from 2024 to 2025. Sales tax distributions are up 26.98% this July (yellow line) compared to 2024. Source: DCEDC report.
“As soon as you think you don’t have competition, then you’re going to start to decline, or potentially lose those customers,” he said.
Before online shopping, the competition was a shop down the street or other businesses within the district. With the rise of e-commerce, many small businesses are competing with companies that exist entirely online. If that’s their competition, “shop local” campaigns can’t be framed as a guilt trip or an expectation because it’s not a compelling selling point for consumers, Barman said. Instead, businesses must demonstrate the value they offer.
“When people are shopping face-to-face, they’re looking for more than just the transaction,” Barman said. “They’re looking for entertainment. They’re looking for education.”
Buying locally is more valuable for consumers, Barman said, when small businesses create an ambiance that facilitates unique relationships with customers. That’s a model that fits Door County, said Paul Salm, UW-Extension’s human development and relationships educator for Door County, and owner of Cornerstone Pub in Baileys Harbor.
“I believe many people choose to live here to get out of that rat race,” he said. “I think people really enjoy those personal relationships that come with our small-town shopping because of the social value of it.”
Package Deliveries
In August, we asked how many packages you receive a week, on average. Here is the average based on the responses of 106 individuals:
Graphic by Eleanor Corbin.
The average age of respondents was just over 68, with a range of ages from 25 to 87. The average number of packages received a week did not significantly change based on age.