Glocalization

by Paul Grimsley

It is not an attractive word, but then a lot of portmanteaus aren’t — they are often saddled with being overly punny and tainted by a certain stench of clever-clever, but this does not mean that they don’t necessarily work conceptually.

The web distorted the perception of what global and local mean, because a small shop that was once anchored by the bricks and mortar that faced out onto the high street was suddenly able to have a virtual shop front that faced out to the world.

It isn’t a word that many people are going to embrace, but it is a concept that pretty much informs everything nowadays. Sometimes the local aspect of the product that you have is a great selling point. If what you sell is inspired by or would traditionally be only available in the area where you live and work then it may be something that really appeals to someone who might not normall have access to it.

Of course there is an attempt by the huge conglomerates who start out on a national or international scale to present in the local market as if they were a small mom and pop type concern, but it isn’t hard to see the difference in philosophical stance and attitude. The products are the first indicator, but then it extends sometimes to the staff, who you can often tell aren’t as invested as something that is owner operated might be.

People do still like to be able to drop in on the people that they deal with in business, and where that isn’t possible to know that they are getting the personal touch of someone who is on the ground floor and cares about customer satisfaction. Transnationals with their huge call centers or non-existent customer service don’t necessarily have the best reputation for that kind of thing. This is the charm of Etsy, the exporting of an artisinal way of doing business.

As more and more corporations merge and more market sectors get hoovered up by the giants, the smaller more individualistic and personable companies have to play to their strengths, and they have had a larger venue in which to do that for a long time.