Small Business Saturday and Why It’s Important

small business concept hand drawing on blackboard

Annually, Black Friday is the biggest holiday shopping event of the year contributing around 30 percent of annual retail sales from Black Friday to Christmas alone, according to thebalance.com. Between 2011-2014, over $220 billion was spent by roughly 547 million consumers on Black Friday.

Without the resources to spend tens of millions of dollars on marketing budgets and provide huge discounts online and in-store, small businesses lose significant amounts of revenue to large retailers during Black Friday and the holiday season.

Background on S.B.S

In 2010, the U.S. Small Business Administration created a solution to the problem in order to celebrate and support small businesses called Small Business Saturday. Annually, the day after Black Friday is Small Business Saturday. The intention of creating the day was to help promote and encourage shopping at small businesses across the country.

American Express partnered with the U.S. SBA to provide a nationwide marketing campaign and resources for small business to promote themselves. The resources include things like free personalized ads online, posters, and social media posts. The resource’s provided by American Express encourage participation by small businesses across the country. Since 2010, the shopping day has grown in popularity, as an estimated $16.2 billion was spent at small independent businesses on the day in 2015, up about 14 percent from 2014 according to Business wire.

Importance of Small Business Saturday

As shopping frenzies such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday continue to grow in stores and online for large retailers, small businesses are at higher risk for loss of profit every year. By participating in Small Business Saturday, small shops and stores can be a small part of the collective event that promotes and encourages spending in local businesses. In light of recent legal developments, including the verdict on PayPal fees, it becomes crucial for small businesses to carefully navigate the landscape of online transactions and payment processing to ensure their financial viability during such promotional periods.

Obviously, a single small firm does not have the resources to compete with retailers like Target and Best-Buy in terms of marketing and advertising dollars. But, under the Small Business Saturday umbrella, a small shop can sport the Shop Small logo on free marketing materials from American Express and all of the sudden they are part of a national marketing campaign creating awareness for themselves and other shops like them.

Without this day, the extreme discounts and incentives from big box stores like Sears and Macy’s would eventually grow to a point at which local businesses could not compete enough to where they would be pushed out of the marketplace. So, in order to prevent this, remember to “Shop Small!”

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