Dear Crabby, I usually do all my shopping online, can you please tell me what Small Business Saturday is?
Sincerely, Indoor Girl
Well Hello Indoor Girl,
Small Business Saturday has been around since 2010, but if you’re an indoor kind of person, I can understand you not knowing about this special day to get folks into true blue American stores.
For decades, the day after Thanksgiving, as most people know as Black Friday, is the start to the holiday shopping season. It’s the big day all the big box stores offer big deals (or so they say) – it creates a situation that is comparable to the Running of the Bulls. It will be fast and furious, possibly deadly, and most certainly dangerous. Then in 2005, Cyber Monday came onto the scene to offer a more relaxed, shop from home experience. You have to be quick with your fingers and know your way around the Internet. Sounds like that’s how you do things.
But now for the past seven years, we’ve had the opportunity to skip the mad dash, get outdoors, and go shopping the old-fashioned way – with credit cards and cars with large trunks.
Small Business Saturday was a promotional gimmick to get shoppers to patronize brick and mortar businesses. And the public has really got on board with the idea. It’s a nice way to support smaller, local places that cannot compete with the big box stores and online shopping deals. We can thank Millennials, in part, for this working (never thought I’d thank a Millennial). This group of folks born in the 1980s and 1990s, are experience-driven. Maybe because they spent so much time playing with computer games the idea of getting outside is appealing. What ever the reason, local businesses win as many flood the streets on the Saturday between Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
Anyway you look at it, it’s a busy shopping weekend. I like to sleep in and eat left over turkey the day after. So, this Small Business Saturday thing is perfect for me. Well, I prefer not to go shopping at all, but that special Christmas gift for Mrs. Crabby won’t buy itself. Off to the stores I go – I hope you will as well – to support our small local businesses.
If you’re shopping in Downtown Rochester, you can enjoy complimentary carriage rides from 11:00 a.m. until 2:00 p.m. on November 26. And Oakland County has a Promotion: Shoppers who enter a picture of their receipt from a purchase made on November 26 at a small business in Oakland County are eligible to win $5,000, courtesy of North American Bancard. One second prize winner receives $2,000, courtesy of Flagstar Bank, and third prize is a $500 voucher towards travel on Southwest Airlines at Flint Bishop International Airport.
Happy Shopping Indoor Girl and Merry Christmas!
Sincerely, Dear Crabby
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