<p>Scotland County, North Carolina business owners are toughing it out, but negative population demographics, exploding property taxes, government subsidized competition 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 beginning to experience 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 guarantee their vehicles are exactly as advertised and often offer free delivery right to your door. This trend, while 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 too many businesses were simply not doing their best to help themselves or their community.</p>
<p>Despite Laurinburg citizens being up in arms over the city's spending millions of dollars they didn't have on an extravagant new municipal complex they didn't need, most businesses chose to remain silent, lying low, while this disaster played out.</p>
<p>Even though money wasted on this boondoggle meant already hard pressed taxpayers would have even less money to spend at local business for the next forty years while this boondoggle's bonds were being paid off, the business community didn't seem to care. Heck, if business owners themselves didn't care... why should the rest of us?  </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 and they never said no to any project we brought them. Unfortunately, once we stopped shopping in Scotland County, this meant we needed to find a new machine shop too. We did, and this wasn't the only good, hardworking local business that lost our trade. This is what happens when business leaders and their government operated Chamber of Commerce can't be bothered to do their part.</p>
<p>It didn't take long for us to discover that even Wal-Mart pricing is lower in neighbouring counties, and they can't even begin to match Aldi and Lidl's rock bottom pricing. We save almost 40% on our food bill alone by shopping outside Scotland County. This not only makes up for gasoline and vehicle wear and tear, but allows us to have a nice, relaxing sit down lunch for free and still have money left over. Who said there was no free lunch?</p>
<p>Things are never going back to the way they were. It's going to get even tougher for businesses who refuse to understand what's happening and adapt.</p>
<p>CCN pays close attention to rapidly changing economic and social trends. Here's a video from one of our favourite financial gurus. We hope you find it helpful. As always, it's 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>
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