When you shop small business and artists, you are supporting a more sustainable economy and a rich cultural ecosystem. It also makes us do a little dance with every order! Your money goes directly to that person's rent/mortgage, bills, food, business, and other local businesses. It's a beautiful cycle of investing in your community, that then feeds itself time and time again. Shopping local and small creates a better future! Alternatively, when you shop with large corporations, your money mostly goes toward bloated executives' pockets, further perpetuating the growing wage gaps and environmental damage. Look, we all need convenience occasionally, and sometimes we can ONLY afford the big corporations who can offer exploitatively low pricing. Shopping on Amazon sometimes is inevitable for all of us. But if you can start replacing just a few things with small business purchases, it will go such a long way to steer our collective ship towards more sustainable and local practices -- and help literally feed a real live person and/or family.