Shopping Small Gets Big

A new day has been added to holiday calendar, but keep reading! It’s a good one.

A year ago, as the U. S. economy was beginning its upturn, small businesses were looking for a way to attract customers, and according to American Express, a supporter of the day, 93 percent of consumers like to support local businesses. Thus was born Small Business Saturday.

“Small businesses are really the lifeblood of the economy,” said Mary Ann Fitzmaurice Reilly, senior VP, customer marketing for American Express.

Black Friday, the holiday shopping kickoff was first. Then the Monday following Thanksgiving became Cyber Monday. Now Small Business Saturday encourages  shoppers to hit the sidewalks and support locally owned stores the Saturday after Black Friday. Last year was the first. This year it’s Nov. 26.

Fitzmaurice Reilly said last year was about creating awareness of the day. This year shops are being encouraged to use Facebook and other social networking tools to promote their business. American Express’s Small Business Saturday Facebook page encourages consumers to shop small, and provides tools for businesses to make their own Facebook page, if they don’t already have one.

“What we were able to do on the consumer side last year, and continue to do this year, is to tap into the traffic, the viral nature of the Facebooks of the world,” Fitzmaurice Reilly said. According to a survey conducted by American Express, 89 million people said they plan to shop small on Small Business Saturday.

Mike Orlando, owner of on Watson, said that he thinks it is absolutely necessary and responsible to do business within your community, whenever possible. 

"Sometimes you have to go outside the community to find what you want and/or need," Orlando said. "The value of your business is closely related to the client base you have within your own community. These are the people who will support your business more often than others outside your community. The taxes generated by these customers only benefit every small business within the community since the tax dollars stay there."

To get things going, American Express is giving the first 10,000 small businesses to make their own Facebook page through the Small Business Saturday Facebook page $100 in Facebook advertising.

For businesses already on Facebook, there’s a program created with the help of Google called My Business Story, which helps a business tell its story on Facebook with a YouTube video.

Kay Tabisaura, owner and instructor at East West Ballet School in , said that having her own local dance studio, has given her the
opportunity to provide a ballet program that is rooted in the values,
tradition, discipline and professional quality of instruction that she was
educated in and now would like to pass on to students.  

"I am pleased to have my ballet school here in Crestwood, a city that provides and supports high quality services and strong educational institutions," she said.

Patti Guttmann, with the St. Louis office of the U.S. Small Business Administration said the S.B.A. sponsors an entire week, nationally, that promotes small businesses. In St. Louis, the week, Small Business Week of Eastern Missouri, is in May.

Guttmann said of the second annual Small Business Saturday, “hopefully millions of people will be shopping at small businesses on that Saturday. To help them grow is a fantastic thing.”

Orlando said that growing up in a family business and being of Italian heritage at the same time has its rewards and challenges. 

"Being Italian is all about family. But while I love and enjoy my family, at times everyone can be very opinionated, especially while trying to operate a business together," he said. "We are all very passionate people. Passionate about our family and about our business. We try to treat our employees like family as well and with that love and respect, our operation runs much smoother than say working for a large corporate giant. This business model resonates to our clients. We treat them like family too.