The argument for spending locally is often made in sentimental terms — support your local high street, keep money in the community. But the economic case is more robust than sentiment. Local spending creates a measurable multiplier effect that national and global spending simply cannot match.
The local multiplier effect
When you pay a local plumber, electrician, or builder, that money does not stop moving. The business uses it to pay local wages, buy materials from local suppliers, pay business rates that fund local services, and often spend personally in local shops and restaurants. Each pound recirculates through the local economy before eventually leaking out.
Research by the New Economics Foundation found that every £1 spent with a local business generates approximately £1.76 of local economic activity — compared to around £1.40 for larger businesses with fewer local linkages.
What happens when you use a national platform instead
Online aggregator platforms and national franchise trades businesses typically extract a significant portion of every transaction as a platform fee or margin. That money leaves the local economy immediately — it goes to shareholders, platform operators, and management structures that may be headquartered anywhere in the world.
This is not a moral argument against using those platforms. But it is worth understanding what is happening to your money when you do.
The trades sector and community anchoring
Trade businesses — plumbers, electricians, builders, cleaners — are uniquely community-anchored. They cannot be offshored. A boiler cannot be fixed remotely. This means trade spending is almost inherently local in nature — the question is simply which local businesses you choose, and whether those businesses reinvest in their community or extract from it.
What makes a local trade business genuinely community-oriented?
- Employs local people at fair wages
- Sources materials from local or regional suppliers where possible
- Pays full UK corporation tax without offshore arrangements
- Donates to or sponsors local charities, clubs, or schools
- Actively employs underrepresented groups or apprentices from the local area
The aggregator problem
The rise of online trade aggregators has created a new dynamic in which local businesses must pay platform fees of 15–30% of transaction value to be visible to customers. This reduces the local multiplier effect — a larger share of each pound is extracted by the platform rather than recirculating locally.
TopTenTrades operates differently. We do not charge businesses for listings, take commission on jobs, or sell advertising. Our business model is built on genuine public interest — not on extracting value from the very local economy we are trying to support.
What you can do
The most impactful thing you can do is choose verified ethical local businesses — ones that pay fair wages, pay their taxes, and invest in their communities. The difference in cost is often minimal. The difference in community impact is significant.