Small Business Saturday

It seems the media machine is always creating some marketing craze or other. 1st they picked up a derogatory term used by employees of major retailers to describe their loathing of having to work the day after Thanksgiving, what with the crazy hours, jostling bodies, and hasseled & harried often grumpy customers, and turned it into a term that we shoppers readily embrace as "ok." During the Dot.com boom, they started referring to the day after Black Friday as Dot.com Saturday, where websites lured everyone to spend boocoupe bucks on sites we'd never even heard of before. Apparently there was some backlash, because this year, the Saturday after Thanksgiving is being referred to as Small Business Saturday.

Now here's a media driven incentive I can really get on board with. Well, obviously - I have a small business. More than that though, I really believe it benefits everybody in our community if we keep as many of our dollars as we can in the local economy. While our government is throwing out money faster than they can print it to anyone - be it business, citizen, non-citizen, or country - that puts their hand out, we do still have some control and say about where we choose to spend the little we have left after taxes. And I, for one, think it's high time we look out for each other, and our friends and neighbors who own the local businesses, who are supporting their families, putting their kids through school, volunteering at the PTO and Band Boosters, and paying wages that support other local families. For years the media has taught us to think globally, and meanwhile our local stores have come and gone and in many small towns have all but disappeared and been replaced with Antique Malls, which really puts a cap on it, doesn't it?

Being raised by a father who was in retail, I was always taught that you did business with your friends & family first. He had a friend that owned a hair dressing studio 45 minutes away. Guess how far we traveled to get our hair done? Good thing gas was only $.60 a gallon. Over the years I continued to practice the friends and family thing whenever it was possible, but I never really thought about local community owned businesses until I was shopping for a Halloween costume for my daughter 3 years ago.

We had been in and out of several of those pop-up (non-locally owned) Halloween stores looking for something (can't recall exactly - had to be something that suited the little girl) and comparing prices. We needed to go to Costume Holiday House (LOCALLY OWNED) anyway because they had rentals for the costume party we were attending. I was really pleased to see that they had just as good of a selection and competitive prices. As I chatted w/ the owner that evening, I had an eye opening experience. She shared w/ me that those pop-up stores were costing her business in excess of $200K a year and were really challenging her ability to support her family and stay in business. Costume Holiday House is one of, if not the only, costume store that rents to local school theaters and churches for their VBS. If they go out of business, where do we get those costumes and stage make-up? That's when I realized that "Buy from friends & family" should be expanded to "Buy from locally owned businesses first!"

This year, 1 Stop Bead Shop is pleased to participate in Small Business Saturday. Visit our website, our Facebook page, and read our newsletter next week for updates and specials.

Then after you visit our store, stop by some of our other local favorites for great gift ideas:
Generation Green
Cup Cakery in Dublin
Ha'Penny Bridge in Old Dublin - your local source for all things Irish
Then grab a bite to eat at Biddies Coach House in Dublin for some of the best home cooked food in Dublin - owned & operated by Diane Hammons - my son's former grade school principal (the friends/family/community connections never end!)

Got any great local Columbus area businesses that you love? Please share them with everyone in the comments box below! The more we share, the more we all benefit! Happy Shopping!