Small Business Saturday Continues Growth and Recognition

Main streets in towns like Galesburg, Illinois, Parker, Coloardo and Columbus, Texas proved there is strong support for local independent businesses on Small Business Saturday, which took place on the Saturday following Thanksgiving. Even our nation’s most famous street – 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue – celebrated Small Business Saturday, which the nation’s President returning to a local book store for the second year in a row in the DC area to “shop small”. Joining President Obama were 88 million consumers on Small Business Saturday, up 14.9 percent from just a year ago.

The Small Business Saturday Consumer Insights Survey, released by the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) and American Express, also shared some exciting details that prove small businesses really do impact our communities, our customers and our economy. With more than two-thirds of the U.S. population aware of Small Business Saturday (67%) and more people shopping this year than ever before, U.S. consumers who were aware of Small Business Saturday reported spending $14.3 billion with independent retailers and restaurants on the day – an increase of 2.1 percent from $14 billion in 2013.

Additionally, nearly 3,000 Neighborhood Champions – groups and communities that registered on ShopSmall.com to help promote the day – around the country rallied local businesses and created events and activities in their communities to support Small Business Saturday. Partners of the day included FedEx, Eventbrite, Microsoft and Yelp – each of whom worked with American Express to promote shopping at small businesses for Small Business Saturday. In addition, 446 companies signed up to become official supporters of the day and 386 advocacy organizations signed up to support the nationwide initiative.

As for small business owners themselves? More than 610,000 free online tools and materials were accessed by small business owners on ShopSmall.com leading up to Small Business Saturday, helping them get the word out about Small Business Saturday.

Among the reasons I love Small Business Saturday is that ShopSmall.com provides so many free, nearly turn-key marketing resources for busy small business owners to take advantage of and put to work for their stores. It’s a powerful movement and a strong message that only gets better as each year passes – and certainly the small businesses participating and helping to spread the word about it are a huge reason for this,” shares Nicole Reyhle, Retail Minded Founder.

On November 29th alone, more than 126,000 tweets were sent in support of the initiative of Small Business Saturday, many using the hashtags #SmallBizSat and #ShopSmall. This was a 10% increase from the previous year, showing continued growth and recognition of Small Business Saturday.

Denise Pickett, President of American Express OPEN, states that “once again, Small Business Saturday proved to be a bright spot over the first official holiday shopping weekend.”

Undoubtedly, Small Business Saturday has kicked off the holiday shopping season and looks to be very bright based on the success it saw this past November 29th. As Pickett further states, “we are confident that the broad national support for these businesses will continue well beyond November 29th.”

And we are too.

Well done, small businesses. Together and with the help of Small Business Saturday, you continue to impress us here at Retail Minded.