It seems to us that Jennifer Piper and the Wallowa County Chamber of Commerce are onto something with their new “Buy Local Blitz” effort.

As the holiday shopping season gets into full swing, Piper, the chamber’s executive director, is encouraging county residents to focus on buying from local merchants. And that’s something we fully buy into, if you’ll excuse the lame pun — and we can point to a long string of editorials that typically run about this time each year making the same point.

But Piper understands the landscape and how it’s changed over the years. She also understands the powerful lure of buying online. She doesn’t expect shoppers to immediately change their habits.

Instead, she suggests a momentary pause at the moment when you’re just about ready to order from some online merchant. Before you click “Buy Now” on the screen of your device, pause for a second and ask this question: Is the item that you’re about to buy available from a local store?

Sometimes, of course, the answer is “no.”

But we suspect that a little bit of research will tell you that the answer, surprisingly often, is “yes.”

And if the answer is “yes,” it might do you some good to go offline (just for a little bit; we’re not asking you to do anything crazy) and take a trip to that local merchant. (Although you might also discover that the local merchant has a pretty good website as well, if you insist on staying glued to your device.)

You already know all the reasons why it makes sense to shop locally. You know that the small businesses we frequent when we shop locally are the backbones of our communities. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce says that more than two-thirds of jobs in the United States come from small businesses. That’s especially true for Eastern Oregon, including Wallowa County, where some 92% of the privately owned businesses have four or fewer employees.

You know that small businesses donate more of their earnings to nonprofits and community causes than do larger companies. These small businesses are the ones that answer the call whenever school clubs or other organizations ask for donations or some type of support. These are the businesses that employ your neighbors and friends.

And wouldn’t it be nice to get out from behind your computer (OK, you can bring your smartphone, but silence the ringer and slide the phone into a pocket) and go out to see those neighbors and friends? For all the wondrous things our electronic marvels can do for us, they still tend to isolate us. Increasingly, we need to find the time to reengage, face to face, with our communities — and strolling through the doors of your local merchants is an excellent way to do that. You’re almost certain to meet up with someone you haven’t seen in a while.

If you need a little extra push out the door, consider that the Buy Local Blitz program also offers shoppers a bit of an extra incentive this year: Qualifying purchases from a chamber-affiliated business can be entered into a drawing for prizes in the form of the chamber’s “Buckskin Bucks.” These Buckskin Bucks no longer are printed on actual deer hide, the way they were a century or so ago, but they’ll spend just like cash at many chamber-affiliated retailers.

So here, in a nutshell, is the case for buying locally: It’s good for local businesses. It’s good for the communities in Wallowa County. It’s good for your friends and neighbors — and for you as well.

And all it takes is for you to pause, for just a moment.