<p>Scotland County, North Carolina business owners are toughing it out, but negative population demographics, exploding property taxes, government subsidized competition, the Internet and neighbouring counties willing to offer better services at lower prices are stiff headwinds to buck.</p>
<p>Even local used car dealers, which had been considered largely immune from current trends, are experiencing erosion as buyers increasingly go online (in some cases to dealers hundreds of miles away) for the largest selection, best pricing and lowest cost financing. Online dealers generally guarantee their vehicles to be exactly as advertised and often offer free delivery right to your door. This trend, while still in its infancy, is moving fast and is about to shake things up big time.</p>
<p>We used to spend over $2000 every month shopping in Scotland County. Today, we don't spend a dime. We haven't shopped in the county for over two years now because we found many businesses were simply not doing their best to help their customers, themselves or their community.</p>
<p>Despite Laurinburg citizens being up in arms over the city's spending millions of dollars it didn't have on an extravagant new 'Williamsburg' style municipal complex it didn't need, most businesses chose to remain silent as this disaster played out. The money squandered on this project meant already hard pressed customers would now have even less money to spend at local business for the next forty years while this boondoggle's bonds were being paid off, but it didn't seem to matter to the businesses.</p>
<p>If the business community doesn't care about its customers, let alone itself, why should customers care about them? If the business community now thinks taxpayer funded 'Art Parks', downtown art studios and coffee shops (albeit owned by 'select' private individuals and NGO's) are going to turn things around, they are truly delusional.</p>
<p>Rotten apples spoil the entire barrel. We used to regularly do business with a local Laurinburg machine shop. They were absolutely great. Their pricing was fair, they were creative, hard working and never said no to any project we brought them. Unfortunately, once we stopped shopping in Scotland County, we needed to find a new machine shop too. We did, and this wasn't the only good local business that lost our trade.</p>
<p>This is what happens when local business leaders stand by and watch as their customers are abused by a government operated Chamber of Commerce and parasitic Ruling Elites bent on feathering their own nest.</p>
<p>Once we stopped shopping in Scotland County, it didn't take long to discover that even Wal-Mart pricing is lower in neighbouring counties, and Wal-Mart can't even begin to match Aldi and Lidl's rock bottom prices. We now save almost 40% on our food bill alone by shopping outside Scotland County, which more than makes up for the extra gasoline and vehicle wear and tear, and allows us to have a nice, relaxing sit down lunch for free while still leaving plenty of money in our pockets. Who said there was no free lunch?</p>
<p>Things are never going back to the good ole days when local businesses had customers by the balls, and it's going to get even tougher for those refusing to understand what's happening and adapt. Scotland County shoppers can now get virtually everything they want or need for less from neighbouring counties or on the Internet.  </p>
<p>CCN pays close attention to rapidly changing economic, social and political trends. Here's a video from one of our favourite financial gurus Gordon T. Long. We hope you find it helpful.</p>
<p>As always, your future is up to You!</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<center><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/CEvckj8hmKc" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></center>
<p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #333333;"><em><strong>Sources:</strong></em></span><br />
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/GordonTLong" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><span style="color: #0000ff;">Gordon T. Long</span></a></p>
<address><strong>Related Articles: <br />
</strong></address>
<address><span style="color: #0000ff;"><a style="color: #0000ff;" title="County North Carolina Property Taxes on the Rise" href="https://carolinacrossroads.news/scotland-county-north-carolina-property-taxes-on-the-rise/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Scotland County North Carolina Property Taxes on the Rise</a></span></address>
<address><span style="color: #0000ff;"><a style="color: #0000ff;" title="Federal Employee Pay and Benefits" href="https://carolinacrossroads.news/federal-employee-pay-benefits/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Federal Employee Pay &amp; Benefits</a></span></address>
<address><span style="color: #0000ff;"><a style="color: #0000ff;" title="Scotland County EDC – Blood Sucking Vampire?" href="https://carolinacrossroads.news/scotland-county-edc-blood-sucking-vampire/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Scotland County EDC – Blood Sucking Vampire?</a></span></address>
<p style="text-align: center;"><em><strong><span style="font-size: 16px; color: #de030b;"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva,sans- serif;">We'd love to hear your questions or comments below. Thank you.</span></span></strong></em></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<address>Affiliate Disclosure: Some links on this page may be affiliate links which, if used to purchase products, would yield a small commission to CarolinaCrossroads.News. This is how we support our website and efforts to bring you the news and information we believe are important to our viewers. Thank you for your support.</address>
<address> </address>
<address>You can reach Carolina Crossroads News at (888) 472-7555 or send us an <a href="http://carolinacrossroads.news/contact-us/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">email</a>.</address>
<p style="text-align: center;">* * * * *</p>
<p><em><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva,sans-serif;">Fair Use Notice: This website post may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for news reporting, educational and other limited purposes only. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in title 17 U.S.C. Section 107 of the US Copyright Law.</span></span></em></p>
<p><em><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva,sans-serif;">CarolinaCrossroads.News (‘CCN’) has no control over and does not endorse any external Internet site that contains links to or references CCN.</span></span></em></p>