05/29/2026
When people talk about strengthening the local economy, the conversation almost always gravitates toward tourism.
We hear about attracting more visitors, increasing hotel occupancy, filling restaurants, supporting festivals, hosting events, improving downtowns, and encouraging travelers to spend money while they're here.
And to be clear, I agree with much of that.
Every tourist dollar that enters Marquette County can create a chain reaction. A visitor books a room, buys a meal, fills a gas tank, purchases souvenirs, hires a guide, attends an event, and those dollars become business revenue. Business revenue becomes payroll. Payroll becomes household income. Household income becomes spending power.
That's all good.
But what I've always found interesting is that the conversation often ends there.
The assumption seems to be that once money arrives in the local economy, the job is done.
I don't think that's true.
The real question isn't just how much money comes into Marquette County.
The real question is:
How long does that money stay here before it leaves again?
Because tourism is only half of the equation.
The other half is economic leakage.
A tourist spends money at a local business.
The business pays employees.
The employees get paid.
The owners get paid.
The suppliers get paid.
Then everyone goes home and starts spending.
And increasingly, that spending happens online.
A resident buys something from a national retailer.
A subscription renews.
An online order gets delivered.
A marketplace purchase is made.
A streaming service charges a monthly fee.
A software subscription renews.
A travel booking is made.
A gift is purchased.
A household item is reordered.
None of these actions are inherently wrong.
I'm not anti-commerce.
I'm not anti-convenience.
I'm not even anti-Amazon.
The reality is that people are going to shop online. They have been for years, and they will continue to do so.
My observation has always been that local economic discussions often ignore what happens after income is earned.
We celebrate bringing dollars into the county while largely ignoring the systems through which those same dollars immediately leave the county.
It's almost like trying to fill a bucket while refusing to acknowledge the holes in the bottom.
And that's where my perspective differs from many traditional economic development conversations.
For over a decade, I've been focused on a question that seems surprisingly absent from public discussion:
If people are already shopping online anyway, how can we make those same actions create local value?
Not by forcing behavior.
Not by shaming consumers.
Not by demanding everyone stop using major retailers.
Not by pretending convenience doesn't matter.
Instead, by inserting a local mechanism into a process that is already happening.
That's the foundation behind SearchMarquette.
The idea was never to replace the internet.
The idea was never to compete with billion-dollar corporations head-on.
The idea was never to convince everyone to stop shopping where they already shop.
The idea was to create a local layer on top of existing behavior.
If someone is already going to purchase a product online, what if a small portion of that transaction could create value locally?
What if online commerce could generate commissions that stayed connected to Marquette County?
What if purchases people were already making anyway could help support local projects, local initiatives, local creators, local organizations, local services, or future community investments?
In other words:
Add purpose to the purchase.
The irony is that many people passionately advocate for shopping local, supporting local businesses, and strengthening the local economy, yet much of their digital behavior continues to send value elsewhere.
Again, that's not an accusation.
It's simply the reality of modern commerce.
Most of us have been conditioned over decades to view online shopping as disconnected from place.
The transaction happens somewhere in cyberspace.
The package arrives.
End of story.
But economically, that's not the end of the story at all.
Every purchase creates value for someone.
Every click generates revenue somewhere.
Every referral pays somebody.
Every transaction leaves a trail of commissions, fees, advertising revenue, subscriptions, and profits.
The question is whether any of that value has a pathway back into our own communities.
Tourism brings money in.
Economic leakage sends money out.
To me, a truly modern local economy has to address both sides simultaneously.
We should absolutely welcome visitors.
We should absolutely support local businesses.
We should absolutely improve our communities and attract investment.
But we should also recognize that in 2026, a significant portion of commerce occurs digitally.
Ignoring online spending while focusing exclusively on physical spending is like studying only half of the local economy.
SearchMarquette was created around that missing half.
Not as a protest against online shopping.
Not as an attack on consumer choice.
But as an attempt to create a local bridge between the digital economy and the physical community.
Because if thousands of residents are already shopping online every day, then perhaps the opportunity isn't to stop them.
Perhaps the opportunity is to make those purchases work a little harder for the place we all call home.
That's the idea I've been pursuing for more than twelve years.
Not simply bringing new money into Marquette County.
But finding ways to keep more value connected to Marquette County after it arrives.
