Seeking to take advantage of Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping, many of the Village of Great Neck Plaza’s nearly 200 small businesses participated in a new shopping holiday aimed at their specific niche with a campaign sponsored by American Express and the Small Business Administration dubbed as “Small Business Saturday”
“It’s a great idea,” SBA Regional Communications Director Ty Swartz said. “You have black Friday and then you have cyber Monday and what’s in between? Well, small businesses are very important. The stories that we’re seeing, there was an increase of people buying at small businesses over the weekend.”
Small Business Saturday was an idea originally conceived of by American Express and was celebrated for the first time on the weekend following Thanksgiving last year.
“They would have businesses sign up for it,” Swartz said. “The people who went to those businesses would get a $25 gift card.”
This year, the SBA embraced the idea as well and added its support to the burgeoning holiday.
“This is the first year for the Small Business Administration to really promote it,” Swartz said. “Really, all we were saying is it doesn’t matter what small business you go to. Any locality, shop local, because they’re the businesses that keep your community going.”
Aside from a monetary incentive to prospective shoppers, American Express provided small business owners with flyers and other types of online advertising aimed at small businesses. The credit card company also provided tips to business owners on how to raise holiday sales.
“They invested a whole lot of money in their national campaign,” said Ron Edelson, executive director of the Great Neck Plaza Business Improvement District. “It was sort of an overall umbrella campaign to shop locally on Saturday. You had Black Friday and the idea was Saturday you reserve your shopping for local merchants.”
The BID had no way of telling just how many of the village’s small businesses took part in the campaign, Edelson said.
But, the response from merchants the council did come into contact with in regards to the holiday was somewhat positive.
“The ones that I have spoken to so far are somewhat mixed, but more have said it was better than last year,” Edelson said.
He estimated about 60 percent of Great Neck Plaza’s merchants said that Small Business Saturday generated more business for their stores, while the remaining business owners who participated claimed they saw no change in shopping activity.
“Given the economy,” Edelson said, “The same isn’t bad.”
And any campaign aimed at spurring small business sales is good for Great Neck Plaza, Edelson said.
“Do I think that it’s a good thing that American Express does that? Without a doubt,” he said. “It is reminding people the importance of shopping locally, supporting your local merchants for the strength and vitality of your town and obviously there are things you can get shopping locally that you can’t get shopping at a big box store or a mall.”
Marnie Ives, owner of Kron Chocolatier on Middle Neck Road, was one of the merchants who did not see much of a change in sales due to her participation in Small Business Saturday.
“It’s kind of is nice,” Ives said of the promotion. “It’s just not great timing for us.”
Due to the nature of her business, Kron Chocolatier usually notices a dip in sales after the Thanksgiving rush for desserts, said Ives, who publicized Small Business Saturday on her company’s Facebook page.
“I can’t get people into my store if no one is in town,” she said.
For Heidi Wolf, the third-generation owner of Camp & Campus clothing store on Middle Neck Road, her experience was somewhat different.
“We had a great weekend,” said Wolf, whose grandparents opened Camp & Campus in 1955. “Of course anything to support small business is great.”
Wolf also publicized Small Business Saturday on the Camp & Campus Facebook page and put certain merchandise on hold for weekend shoppers. She was unsure of just how much of an effect the new shopping holiday had on her business.
“It’s hard to say,” Wolf said. “I think we do a good job of retaining local customers and returning customers.”
The Plaza BID also helps to promote a “buying local” campaign with a gift-certificate program, Facebook page and links to local merchant Web sites on the BID Web site www.shopgreatneck.com.
“We’ll keep pushing that through the holiday season,” Edelson said. “Hopefully, this holiday season will show some improvement over last holiday season. I think this was a relatively good start.”
“Hopefully Visa and Mastercard will take note and do something next year,” he added. “Not necessarily shop Saturday local, but do something about creating a campaign that they can do nationally, which obviously then helps all the stores locally with shopping local and supporting small stores and downtowns.”
