Danielle Van Dusen
Mrs. Straub
AP Economics
December 1 2015
Small Business Saturday
What exactly is Small Business Saturday? A day to celebrate the little guys according to American Express. This is a holiday created by American Express to promote spending money at small businesses. This holiday was first “celebrated” in 2010. Being a very relatively new shopping holiday there is not much customer recognition with it, but that changed this year with the abundance of new advertising strategies. In 2014, only 46% of americans knew about Small Business Saturday and this year with more promoting that percentage jumped to 55%.
People first sparked interest with Small Business Saturday because American Express created an incentive to participate. Anyone with an American Express card that paid over $10 received $10 of credit. By doing this the demand for small business products increased. Because of the increase in demand for the products the total profit for the small business increases drastically. Impressively, the total profit for small businesses in the United States was $14.3 billion and the projected sales for this year was shooting at over $14.5 billion.
There is also other incentives with Small Business Day. In the chart above it explains the different benefits of shopping during Small Business Day. Every sixty-eight out of one hundred dollars spent, stays in the community, while the trade off of shopping non-locally causes consumers to purchase items not from big name brands but only forty-three out of one hundred dollars spent at a non-local business stay in the community.
In the future this shopping holiday will increase in recognition of customers and increase of profits. Possibly soon it will reach the same popularity as Black Friday. What do you all think?
Works Cited
Perkins, Sarah. "Small Business Saturday Statistics | What You Need to Know." Grasshopper. Grasshopper, 12 Feb. 2015. Web. 01 Dec. 2015.
"Small Business Saturday | Shop Small® - American Express OPEN."American Express. American Express Company, n.d. Web. 01 Dec. 2015.
Surprisingly I have never heard of Small Business Saturday. You did a great job explaining what it is! It was a good idea for American Express to give that incentive for people to buy local. This is a great way to get people shopping at small businesses. I wonder how many more people would shop at small businesses on this Saturday if other companies gave incentives like American Express did. As you mentioned, it is better to buy from local businesses because then more of your dollar is put right back into helping the community. I believe that within about five years, Small Business Saturday could almost reach the same popularity as Black Friday because the people that prefer non-name brand items will be sure to shop on this day. Great article, Dani!
ReplyDeleteI have heard of Small Business Saturday but was surprised to hear the holiday came about in 2010! This is a great way for local businesses to draw in extra customers and revenue. I like how American Express offered up that little incentive to their members but after all they were the company that started the holiday. Why aren't other credit card companies doing this? With that being said, I wonder how many people of the supposed 55% who know about the holiday actually go out and buy stuff? With time, I can see this becoming more popular but for the time being Black Friday clearly wins.
ReplyDeleteI have never heard of this event, but I'm sure it is very beneficial to the small businesses, who otherwise do not get very much business. I see the small businesses downtown Pewaukee that go out of business because they are not getting enough income, especially in the winter months. Obviously it is not a well known holiday, but if people continue to participate it will keep the small businesses going that could use the extra attention.
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