Why You Should Shop Small Business Saturday

Small Business Saturday is coming up!

This year I’m participating in Small Business Saturday by offering a discount on my picture books. My hardcover books are 10% off through my bookstore from Saturday, November 23^rd through Saturday, December 7^th. This is one of the few (if any) sales I’ll be doing for books because I’m gonna be honest, I don’t make much after print costs. However, I want you to enjoy gifting a sturdy, beautiful children’s book and unfortunately that means that the print cost is going to be higher for a better-quality book. I wanted to take a moment to offer a discount during the biggest gift-giving season of the year as a thank you to anyone who’s supported me in the past and takes the time to read this post.

A hardcover copy of my book ABCs of Beasties and Birds in My Backyard: A Suburban Safari rest on a painted background.

In the spirit of launching my 1^st Small Business Saturday Book Sale (Nov. 23-Dec 7^th) I want to help spread the impact that small businesses have on local communities and the reasons to support them. Shopping is stressful this time of year but knowing that your efforts in keeping gift shopping local I think helps mitigate some of that stress.

What is a ‘small business’ and what is Small Business Saturday?

A small business constitutes a company of 500 employees or less. Small Business Saturday is the Saturday after Thanksgiving and was actually started by American Express in 2010. They started this event in efforts to increase revenue for small businesses.

What are the perks of shopping at a small business?

There are many reasons to shop local independent shops. Here’s just a few that immediately come to mind:

Shop owners tend to be more attentive to customers
- Some shops may even serve as local gathering places
Greater variety of unique goods to peruse
Some even offer options for customization of products
You can avoid the large crowds at big stores and have a less hectic shopping experience during the ‘holiday rush’
- As an introvert who hates large crowds, this is definitely a plus
By spending at small, local businesses you’re infusing money back into your community

Now for the number-based reasons to shop small businesses:

According to Score.org, 67 cents of every dollar spent stays within that community when someone shops a small business. 44 cents of that 67 cents goes to paying small business owners and their employees. Small businesses reinvest 23 cents of every dollar in other local businesses, whether it be through using local vendors, hiring locally, etc. It keeps the money circulating within their own communities!

In a study done by the American Independent Business Alliance, 48% of each purchase at local small business was recirculated locally, compared to a measly 14% of each purchase from big-box retailers(Expert Alert). Talk about a huge difference it makes shopping local!

Why NOT to shop online from big corporations:

Shopping online is easy. We all know this, but if we could make a more concerted effort to keep our spending local when possible, it would benefit our communities more rather than commerce giants that don’t even know we exist. There’s almost “no local economic benefit” (Expert Alert), apart from paying the delivery driver when you shop online from big commerce giants. At least when you shop in-store at big retail you’re helping people keep their jobs through checkout, stock, customer service, etc.

I could also go into questionable product quality that we see on big commerce sites especially when they allow 3rd-party sellers….a rant for another day. All I’m going to say is that there’s a reason the big commerce sites that I won’t name offer ‘deals’ and cheap products that are too good to be true.

Other ways to support small businesses this holiday season and beyond:

We all know that money has been tighter this year because of rising living costs… Quickbooks reported in a survey that nearly a quarter of the people asked said they planned on spending less this holiday season. This of course means that for small businesses that profits may not be as great as years prior. However, there are other ways to support your local small businesses if money is tight for you.

You can also:

Leave a review on their products or store
Join their email list (shameless plug, you can join mine here)
Refer a friend
Engage with their content on socials and share, save, follow, like…whatever the social media of your choice allows
Cheer them on
Again, share share share!
- I’m no algorithm expert but from what I’ve learned most social medias don’t recognize value in content unless its shared or saved, so share and save posts to your hearts content

In conclusion:

Small Business Saturday celebrates the role small businesses play in our economy. If you’re looking for ways to get involved more in your community, making an effort to shop local more frequently is an easy way to start. I hope that by giving you this info you can now make better informed decisions on whether or not to shop local! I certainly learned more of the numbers-side of the impact that small business have on their communities while researching for this blog post. I love shopping local businesses and it’s really the only places that I can find unique gifts for others and myself.

As a small business owner, I truly appreciate every purchase and whenever ya’ll share my books with others. I hope that I can continue to write and illustrate children’s books that you’ll enjoy reading with the kiddos in your life. If you want to check out my storefronts, you can go here.

Birds in My Backyard book opened up to a page in which a boy and his dog are getting ready to start looking for birds.

S.R.Pierce Art