Support Small Businesses in Your Holiday Shopping!

As the end of 2020 slowly creeps up on us, it’s part of the holiday tradition to scramble to do some last minute gift-shopping for our loved ones. For this Christmas, instead of clicking to Amazon or other large corporations, take this chance to support small businesses around you! IQ Magazine has compiled a list of our favorite small businesses that we think would make great places to shop from for this gift-giving season.

Emily Jang:

What better way to show your love than through some plants? Rooted is an online plant store that not only offers a wide variety of beautiful household plants at affordable prices, but they also provide free shipping, as well as a friendly plant community to join! No worries if you’re a newbie when it comes to plants: they even have a SMS Plant Doctor to consult, along with a collection of articles on taking care of plants.

Do you believe that birds are actually government-controlled drones designed to spy on us and track our every movement? No worries, you’re not the crazy one: Birds Aren’t Real is a movement whose goal is to make everyone aware that the pigeons and crows you see outside are actually robot replicas placed for omnipresent government surveillance. Not to mention, their merch is pretty sick.

Rurie Yi:

Calling all book nerds! Bookshop is an online bookseller that donates 75% of their profits to local, independent booksellers. Unlike Amazon, Bookshop compensates authors and publishers fairly for their work, and you can actually direct donations from your purchase to your favorite local bookshop through their “Find a Bookstore” feature. Win-win! Except for Amazon, I guess, but that’s a bonus for me. Give the gift of the written word, but make it ethical.

If you’re a sucker for gorgeous handmade home and kitchen wares like me, you’ll love EverDream Craft on Etsy. I recently received their Ceramic Pour Over coffee maker as a gift, and not only does it make great coffee, it also looks like a piece of art on my dingy kitchen counter. The same can be said for all of their items: functionality that is pleasing to your eye holes. It’s the gift that keeps on giving!

Written by: Emily Jang, Rurie Yi, May Zhou