Small Business Saturday is just a few days away, are you ready? While more and more people are hearing aboutSmall Business Saturday, not everyone is familiar with it yet. Small Business Saturday is a day created tocelebrate the Shop Small movement and encourage shoppers to shop at smallbusinesses in their neighborhood. LikeBlack Friday and Cyber Monday, this is a push to keep the importance ofshopping local and at small businesses on everyone's mind come the holidays andyear round.
The importance of shopping local has certainly beenspreading of late and the need to keep the movement going certainly needs tocontinue. For those not aware with thebenefits of shopping local, research indicates that of every dollar you spendat local, small businesses, 80% is returned to the community. And each dollar you spend at an independentlyowned small business will return up to 5 times that much to your community viacity taxes, wages and purchases of materials to keep the business running atother local small businesses.
In contrast, chains and franchises only return 40% of eachdollar spent to the community and as little as 20% back through taxes, wages,etc. And big box chains like Wal-Mart,nearly half that still at 20% and much less through taxes since many receivetax cuts for being so large.
Being a small business owner myself, I know I make an extraeffort to spend my money at local small businesses so can certainly understandhow these stats can be true. I hardlyhave to leave my neighborhood to get almost everything I need, and I know myemployees do the same.
There will certainly be plenty of temptations to save a fewdollars this shopping season and I totally get that. But be aware of how much money you are reallysaving and if it is something you can buy from a local shop instead. I know a lot of people making pledges to buya certain percentage of gifts from small businesses this year and I encourageyou to do the same, you might be surprised by what you find.
And to up the ante, American Express is offering an extraincentive for shopping local this Saturday.If you register your card for the Shop Local campaign, you willautomatically be credited $25 on your next statement. Help out your community and save money, a winwin all the way around. For moreinformation on the campaign and to discover local small businesses near you,click here.
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