In the News: Are your customers embracing Small Business Saturday?

[Pesso]

Hey Newsies,

Today we’re looking at an article from Forbes reporting on changing customer habits for Black Friday and Small Business Friday. I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences on this!

Forbes: Why Are Shoppers Opting For Small Business Saturday Over Black Friday?

The article explains that US customers may be shifting away from Black Friday sales, and over to support more small businesses for Small Business Saturday. This takes place on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, November 30, 2024, to celebrate and support local businesses. It was founded in 2010 by American Express and cosponsored by the Small Business Administration (SBA). 

The article attributes this shift away from Black Friday to changing customer priorities to care more about quality, sustainability, customer service, and an overall better shopping experience. Customers know that they won’t get these by just shopping sales at big box stores, and are shifting over to support more small businesses that can deliver on these priorities. As a result, customers are latching on to Small Business Saturday campaigns around the holiday season. They are embracing the slower pace, smaller crowds, and supporting local businesses.

I owned an ice cream shop so Black Friday wasn’t the most applicable to us, but having Small Business Saturday was a nice way to be involved in these shopping days. In general, we tried to cultivate a higher end feel and culture in our shop. We didn’t do sales or deals, and didn’t necessarily want to lean into a discount feel. Our only exception was setting up a Black Friday sale for our gift cards in order to encourage higher spending. This was a great strategy to get some extra cash flow around our slowest time of the year, bring in potential new customers, and give a discount and incentive to our customers. 

We didn’t necessarily see a massive boost in sales on Small Business Saturday, we did have some customers come in to say that they’re specifically there to support us on the day. We did our best to get involved in the day, to put up signs, promote it on social media, and acknowledge it when our customers came in. It has definitely grown over the years, and if we were still in business today, we would do more to make it a bigger event.

What’s your perspective:

• Have you felt a push away from Black Friday sales and towards Small Business Saturday?

• What are you planning for Small Business Saturday to attract these customers?

Can’t wait to hear your thoughts!
Pesso

This article is for informational purposes and does not constitute legal advice. For guidance or advice specific to your business, you should consult with a qualified legal professional.

[CareyJo]

In our line of work, neither day is applicable to us.  However, in MT, I will say that SBS is a big deal around here because more and more people are leaning away from shopping on Thanksgiving night and Friday to get away from being consumed by keeping employees working at crazy hours, in addition to being able to support more small businesses and not the big box, when they can.  It has truly grown around our state.  I will say, if Covid did anything, it was to reset America back to when people went home at the end of the day, stores actually closed at night and people respected store hours and I'm thankful for that.  I've been super happy that Walmart has not gone back to 24 hours.  I know when you've got a sick kid in the middle of the night it's great to have a store open but being closed is far more important.  When we moved here 25 years ago, the sidewalks still rolled up at night and we've gone back to a lot of that now, post Covid and for the most part I think the whole state is happy about it.

If I do shop over the weekend, I prefer to do SBS and not fight the crowds on Friday.  Not to mention, I have been shopping all year long anyway, have too many other things to do and rarely do I find a sale on Friday that is so important that I cannot miss it.  I generally take these four days off to do other things and not be shopping anyway.  I think it would have been great to go shopping and stop for ice cream!  Can't do that very much 'round here!!

[Pesso]

That's totally fair, @CareyJo  -- I was definitely thinking of y'all when writing this, and trying to think of creative ways to get involved in SBS festivities. 

I love that your area has embraced the shift to small business and people focused. It's so important to think of the workers and give time back to folks like that. 

I'm glad that you've taken that time off. I totally agree -- the sales last all week, if not all month, so there really is no big rush to run out and grab from the big spots on Friday. 

I love that idea of strolling down a main street to support all the local businesses, and make a day and experience out of it!

Thanks for sharing as always-

[DinaLRosenberg]

Small Business Saturday is also our anniversary weekend so we alway go big. We do our biggest sale of the year Friday through Tuesday 🙂

[Tom]

Opening shop on Small Business Saturday weekend: the perfect convergence! ✨

Happy (early) anniversary @DinaLRosenberg! 🙌🏻

[Pesso]

That's huge, @DinaLRosenberg ! Congrats on the anniversary! How did the big sale go this year?

[MudFire_Dex]

Historically we have a great turnout on SBS and have built a Shop Small ethos with our gallery customers. We close on Friday to prep for the Saturday sale. Years ago we did the sale on Friday but found that people were overwhelmed at running out for the "it" gift of the year and on Saturday are ready for the handmade goods. 

[SamTN]

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Years ago we did the sale on Friday but found that people were overwhelmed at running out for the "it" gift of the year and on Saturday are ready for the handmade goods. 

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Exactly, we noticed the same trend, been a while. SBS going strong here too. 

[Pesso]

Thanks for sharing, @SamTN ! What do y'all tend to do in your business? How was this past SBS for you?

[Pesso]

That's so wonderful that you get a nice surge on SBS, @MudFire_Dex -- and that you really embrace Shop Small all the time with your business model. That's such a good point about everyone getting overwhelmed with the bigger things on Friday, and so wonderful that you take & give Friday off.

How did it all go?

[MudFire_Dex]

SBS was a big part of the year because of the renovations we did for the gallery space and addition of a new classroom space instead of proceeding with a second space. We hit the 1M gross goal for the year in our OG home! Here is a sneak peek of the new front gallery space (this was where we did our last interview @Pesso ) I'm prepping a Before and After post for end of year for Seller Lounge or Community. 

[Pesso]

Oh daaaang, I absolutely love the vibes, @MudFire_Dex ! I love how much more space you have for showing things off and how open and airy and gothic-esque it is. I think that's going to make a huge difference! Thanks for sharing the sneak peek-

Congrats on hitting the 1M goal! That's an absolutely massive milestone and you should be so proud of yourselves for achieving that through such hard work, dedication, creative problem solving, careful planning, and amazing execution. 

How is the classroom space going? I think that idea of deeper renovations instead of a second space really worked out and I hope y'all are so happy with it!

Thanks for sharing so much!

[Twpchair]

I'm retail furniture and yes our customers come out like a blowout sale for Small Business Saturday. I belong to the Chamber of Commerce and they push it hard and do a punch card if you hit 5 businesses and purchase something you keep your receipt and punch card to the Chamber and they do a 1k gift certificate of your choice for one of 5 stores. Then 500.00 and 250.00. Most of ours is location. We're probably 90% mom-and-pop stores. We have our fast food and Dollar General at every corner but the town and city stick hard to keeping out of Walmart, Target all of them. They support and push shop locally. We probably wouldn't have a fast food but its out of the city limits and at a major 3 interstate split. If you want or need a couch, table, or decor you better come see me or drive 30-40 miles one way. Our customers tell me they don't leave the house anymore and all online Friday and hit the stores in town Saturday. 

[Twpchair]

Ops, return the punch card to the Chamber. 

[Pesso]

That's such a cool thing that the Chamber does to help incentivize shopping at small businesses, @Twpchair . Does it tend to bring in more folks?

How did the rush go? I hope y'all made out well!

[Twpchair]

It does draw in more people to town they kick it off with the street lights and later at night the Christmas tree. We have a reindeer farm here and a petting zoo that comes into town. It's a whole day event. It went well and actually, Black Friday was our busiest one yet, the same with Cyber Monday. Those were surprising. We did better this Saturday than the last 4 years. That's as far as I checked the books. Now, we are having a horrible 3-4 days! This weather is crazy! Gotta love Michigan!

[Pesso]

That does sound like a really great event, @Twpchair , and I’m so glad that this year was super successful for y’all! The highest in 4 years is a major accomplishment and boost! 

Oof. Yea that’s less fun — hopefully the weather turns back to being nicer soon for y’all! Rooting for you! 

[Twpchair]

Thank you! And yes it's switching to snow! My whole family lives in Tennessee but ME! I did for 6 years and moved back and my parents own a place here as well and come back June -Aug. I go to Tennessee every year between January and Feb for 2 weeks and I am not a snow girl and prefer to stay! 😆 

[Pesso]

I totally get that, I'm not a snow guy either -- much prefer escaping the winter weather whenever possible!

[BrianaJo]

I love that Small Business Saturday is helping customers with slowing down with the shopping, being more thoughtful about it. I believe people were really wanting that and looking for a way to do that, which is how come American Express SBS has done so well with facilitating that shift. Especially after the 90's/00's wave of people getting crushed in the big box stores. It was the ugly side of consumerism, when ultimately people just want to spend time with their family.  

I run a coffee shop so we're already very community and people oriented, but then this time of year we really try to embrace the hygge. We're located in a downtown historic main street, a little out of the way for normal driving traffic, so that already makes us slower paced and more mindful of enjoying the moments than main stream business.

We've only been open a year and a half so I'm not sure how our Small Business Saturday is going to go this year, but last year our Chamber of Commerce did a Christmas on Main event in the evening so they had the road blocked off all day which really tanked our SBS traffic and sales. 

So far this year we're doing our Thanks-A-Latte event which is the lead up to Thanksgiving. You can preorder a gallon of coffee and a dozen cider donuts for pickup Thanksgiving morning (otherwise we're closed). For Small Business Saturday specifically we don't actually have anything big planned, we just have a bundle deal of getting our branded Tumbler and a bag of coffee. 

[Pesso]

Thanks for sharing, @BrianaJo ! 

That's so interesting -- I would have thought & hoped that a downtown main street event would bring more sales and traffic rather than less! I'm so sorry that happened. I hope this year was better-

I absolutely love that Thanks-A-Latte event idea! And a merch bundle is such a great thing to help boost sales.

Definitely let us know how it went!