Week 8 EOC: Small Business Saturday

Created in 2010, AmEx offered 100,000 card members a $25 credit for shopping locally. That's a possible $2,500,000 in free money. (Taken from Cnbc.com)

First observed on November 27, 2010, it is a counterpart to Black Friday and Cyber Monday, which feature big box retail and e-commerce stores respectively. By contrast, Small Business Saturday encourages holiday shoppers to patronize brick and mortar businesses that are small and local. (taken from Wikipedia.com)

Aided by a full-fledged radio, TV, and social media ad blitz, credit card giant American Express launched Small Business Saturday on November 27, 2010. The idea was simple: Encourage U.S. consumers to use the Saturday between Black Friday and Cyber Monday to shop at their local mom-and-pop businesses.  

The folks at Twitter want Small Business Saturday to survive. “Twitter is offering $1 million in free ads for small businesses,” writes Dylan Tweney for Venture Beat.

 “In just three years, Small Business Saturday went from an idea to help Small Business find more customers, to a permanent fixture on the holiday shopping calendar,” said Susan Sobbott, president, American Express OPEN. “According to the research, we are seeing the small business community take ownership of the day and make it their own.”

“The inaugural Small Business Saturday Insights Survey, which was released this week, found 47 percent of independent merchants will make a point of using Small Business Saturday as a way to draw customers,” Tim Gallen write for the Phoenix Business Journal.

The study also shows that at least 67 percent of small businesses intend to include Black Friday-style discounts to help drive sales.

“American Express started the Small Business Saturday ‘movement’ in 2010 and last year over 100 million people decided to Shop Small for the big day,” Marketing Pilgrim notes. (taken from theblaze.com)