Mar 10, 2012

‘Cash Mob’ Fills Edmonton Boutique With Mass-BusinessBy Elizabeth WitheyEdmontonJournal.com

Edmonton, AB – “This is pretty sweet,” Peter Rychlik said to himself Saturday as he admired a fruit bowl fashioned from an old vinyl record in Carbon Environmental Boutique. “It’s either this or one of those bugs made out of diodes.”

Rychlik, a recent University of Alberta grad, was one of about 20 people who took part in the city’s first cash mob, a buy-local variant of the flash mob.

While flash mobbers assemble in public places to do something brief, unexpected and seemingly pointless, be it a pillow fight, silent disco or performance of the “Hallelujah” chorus from Handel’s Messiah, cash mobbers gather and descend on a small, local business, where they spend about $20 apiece. It gives the business an economic boost and heightens awareness about the benefits of buying local, which many argue is a better use of one’s time than flash mobbing.

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