Sandwiched between Black Friday and Cyber Monday is Small Business Saturday, an occasion for millions of shoppers across the country to buy their holiday gifts at mom-and-pop shops rather than big-box retailers.
Local business leaders, though, say the importance of keeping dollars close to home goes beyond just a single day.
That’s why the Greater New Hyde Park Chamber of Commerce launched its first-ever “Shop Local, Shop Greater New Hyde Park Month,” a campaign to drum up support for local businesses throughout the month of November.
It’s an effort to turn the “shop local” catch phrase into real support for small businesses, said Jerry Baldassaro, the New Hyde Park chamber president.
“We want all of our businesses to succeed, and we have to come up with innovative ideas to make that happen,” he said.
In addition to putting signs promoting local shopping in about 100 storefronts and two banners on New Hyde Park streets, the chamber has posted 21 “hot deals” from member businesses on its website, from a free Thanksgiving turkey promotion at ShopRite supermarket to a 10 percent discount at Gourmet Bake Shop on Hillside Avenue.
The chamber is also giving away two $50 gift certificates to any member business in an online drawing.
The chamber hopes its monthlong campaign will show shoppers the importance of local businesses in a holiday season during which they’re competing with big-box stores and online merchants, Baldassaro said.
“If we can counteract Cyber Monday with you coming into our businesses and purchasing it from a real person in front of you, we’ve done our job,” he said.
While it does not have a specific holiday shopping campaign, the Mineola Chamber of Commerce tries to drum up business for local stores year-round by hosting programs such as summer movie nights or hanging lights on village streets in the winter, said Tony Lubrano, the chamber president
That kind of connection with their communities can give local businesses a leg up over their larger competitors, who have greater name recognition and resources to draw customers in, Lubrano said.
“That’s really our goal, is to let people know, before you jump in your car and go to the mall, look around Mineola and see if there’s something there that might work for you,” he said.
The local efforts come amid a nationwide push in recent years to promote small business shopping. American Express in 2010 launched Small Business Saturday, a complement to Black Friday, or the day after Thanksgiving, usually the biggest holiday shopping day of the year in the U.S. Shoppers spent $14.3 billion on that day in 2014, according to American Express.
Countywide business groups have also taken up the task. The Nassau County Industrial Development Agency and the Nassau Council of Chambers of Commerce partnered on a multimedia ad campaign last year to encourage local shopping.
The initiatives are important because healthy small businesses make for healthy local communities and are greatly important to the broader local economy, Baldassaro said.
About 80.7 percent of all Nassau County businesses in 2014 had fewer than 10 employees, according to U.S. Census data. And sales tax is Nassau’s largest single source of municipal revenue, accounting for 38 percent of its proposed 2017 budget.
“If we allow the Internet sales to take over the retail sales, then why do we need stores anymore? Why do we need employees?” Baldassaro said. “In other words, basically everything falls apart without those stores.”
Promoting local businesses is “always an uphill battle,” Lubrano said, but some stores are adapting to the changing retail industry.
Willis Hobbies in Mineola, for example, moved some of its business online after finding customers were using the craft and hobby shop as a “showroom” and then leaving to buy the same items on the Internet, Lubrano said.
“The world’s changing and to the businesses that are able to have that type of profile, they kind of have to change with it,” he said.
