More than $570,000 in sales were generated through the Dubbo Regional Council (DRC) Shop Local competition, providing a much-needed boost of support for local business owners.
Winners were drawn on Monday afternoon at the Dubbo Visitor Information Centre and will see winners share in more than $2,000 of MyDubbo Region gift cards which can be used at more than 150 local businesses across the LGA.
The Shop Local competition was launched in November by DRC in conjunction with the Dubbo Chamber of Commerce, the Wellington Business Chamber and the Daily Liberal to highlight the importance of supporting the local economy off the back of a number of challenging years.
More than 70 businesses across Dubbo and Wellington have been involved.
"The Shop Local Competition was designed to reinforce, remind and reward people for supporting local stores," said DRC Economic Development Team Leader Tim Nichols. "A lot of new and challenging situations have seemed to cascade one after the other and local businesses have done it extremely tough over the past few years.
"There's been uncertainty around trading conditions, delays in supply networks, logistics hurdles, staffing issues and quite often local business owners have had to navigate these issues with no financial assistance or support."
Local retail spending fell to $57.3M in September 2021, (a 43% reduction from September 2020), during the lockdown period. Once lockdown conditions ended, businesses were able to shift focus to the lead-up to Christmas.
"It was imperative to remind, and to reward, people for thinking local first. Our business community has shone through with an amazing shift from normal trading to a whole new way of trading.
"The community has certainly responded, with the final count of competition entries at 4,816 tickets. That means there were 4,816 transactions at an average spend of $125.35 per entry, from people who chose to shop in their local retail stores, showing that residents in this region have backed their local stores and business owners.
"We would like to remind the community to continue to shop local and continue to support the more than 2,000 small businesses in the region."
A full list of participating businesses where residents can spend their MyDubbo Region gift cards is available at: https://dubbo.com.au/business/shop
Winners will be contacted by phone and email and are available on www.dubbo.com.au with plenty of time to spend their winning prizes before Christmas.
