PITTSBURGH (KDKA) – If you’re running into shipping delays for Christmas gifts you’ve ordered, experts say the best way to avoid that is to shop local.
Many people are shopping early and local this year because of the supply chain crisis.
Local crafters and artists, like those at the Handmade Arcade in Pittsburgh last weekend, have been preparing for months to have products ready, and consumers like knowing they can take home their gifts when they buy them.
“You can see them and take them off the shelf and put in your bag and you have it, so it’s a lot more reassuring that you have it with you,” Caroline McCully from Mount Washington said.
Many shoppers also say they like supporting businesses that had to shut down and lost a lot of business last year, as well as makers, who’ve struggled without the big craft fairs.
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Tricia Brancoli-Foley is the executive director of Handmade Arcade.
“You are really giving back to Pittsburgh’s creative economy in a way that is so meaningful,” she says. “Fifty dollars in the pocket of a maker in the city of Pittsburgh goes so much further for the city, for the arts in the community, than it does in if you would spend it in one of those big box stores.”
Many of the local artists and crafters sell their goods online and you can pick them up in person or have them sent to you.
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Here are ways you can find them:
