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Who Shopped Small on Saturday?
The initiative urged consumers to choose local independently owned businesses during the year’s busiest shopping weekend.
With all of the holiday shopping attention usually placed on the day after Thanksgiving, a small business initiative was launched to not leave mom and pop shops out of the retail loop.
Shop Small Business Saturday, an initiative started by American Express, deemed the day which falls between Black Friday and Cyber Monday as the to shop close to home.
The move urged consumers to choose local independently owned businesses during the year’s busiest shopping weekend.
“Customers should choose small businesses because they define our communities. Much of our contact with our communities is with retailers,” Lachlan Taylor, worker’s compensation judge said in an email interview.
“Aside from the transit system, my experience of living in my neighborhood is largely defined by the hardware store, the grocers, the craft suppliers, the auto mechanic, and the coffee shops, restaurants and bistros," Taylor said. “When I go into locally-owned retailers, I am part of the community.”
But even with over 2.7 million “likes” on Facebook and a promoted trending topic on Twitter, Small Business Saturday didn’t boost the business for one shop-owner in West Hollywood.
“We’ve been getting consistently busier, but we didn’t see anything out of the ordinary today,” said Patrick Dilascia, owner and designer of PAR-LA.
When asked if anyone mentioned the small business Saturday movement, Dilascia said, “Only me.”
More than 3.2 million small businesses operate in the Golden State, and about two-thirds of them are run by sole proprietors and the rest have less than 100 employees, according to Scott Hauge of Small Business California.
But when it comes to small businesses, it’s about quality, not quantity.
Based on their prices, there is little competition between small businesses and huge retailers, which have equally large economies, Hauge said. Still, there are ways to put up a fight.
“They need to make it chic to be there,” he said.
Dilascia uses his shop at 8205 Santa Monica Blvd. to host botox parties, and bring in hair stylists and tattoos artists to pamper his customers.
Participating in and hosting community events are one of the benefits afforded to small business, and something Hauge said they need to foster.
Competition between bricks and mortar shops, and the virtual mall has changed the shopping landscape.
E-readers, like the nook and Kindle, are giving paperbound words a run for their money, but some old-school booksellers are fighting back.
“Aside from the knowledge and customer service that (independent businesses) are known for, economic studies have proven that money spent in locally owned businesses is reinvested in the community at a 2.5 to 3 times higher rate than money spent at chains,” Hut Landon, with the Northern California Independent Book Sellers Association, said in an email interview.
Cyber Monday, Black Friday’s virtual counterpart that gives consumers access to holiday deals without leaving the computer, may not be a guilt-free alternative to the massive crowds.
“Spending with online-only behemoths is even worse for the local economy because Amazon, Overstock and the like refuse to collect sales tax,” Landon said.
But not everyone bought into the hype surrounding Small Business Saturday.
While many supports tout shopping small business and supporting local economies as one in the same, one business consultant from Palm Desert said that in a global economy, local businesses don’t really exist.
“The item you buy a block from your house was made from materials found hundreds of miles away in a company more miles away in a different direction with technology developed elsewhere by workers halfway around the world ,” Gene Konstant said in an email interview. “So what's local about local business is really minimal at best.”
Still, the anti-big environment sweeping the country – through initiatives like Shop Small Saturday, the Occupy movements and consumers moving their accounts from big banks to credit unions – is a force for small businesses.
“That’s an element small businesses need to take advantage of,” Hauge said.
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