The Importance of Small Business Saturday

As October wraps up, I start to notice the #shoplocal hash tag on various Social Media platforms. This hash tag is designed to help move small business owners forward in their dreams during the start of Holiday Shopping Season. I am a big proponent of this movement, since I am a small business. Granted, I can’t have deal and steals like a retail small business. However, I can help support the coffee shop around the corner year round or the painting studio for a fun night out. How do you support your local hot spots?

Here are 10 quick reasons on why to support small business during the Holiday Shopping Season (and year round):

1. Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship fuels America’s economic innovation and prosperity, and serves as a key means for families to move out of low-wage jobs and into the middle class. It also helps to foster a child to dream of owning their own shop when one goes into local shops often, instead of the big chains!

2. Keeping Dollars in the Local Economy

Compared to chain stores, locally owned businesses recycle a much larger share of their revenue back into the local economy, enriching the whole community. In Denver, we have several ‘Old Towne” shopping districts across the Metro Area to help keep our dollars in our local economies.

3. Local Decision-Making

Local ownership ensures that important decisions are made locally by people who live in the community and who will feel the impacts of those decisions. Think of the elections that typically take place before the Holiday Shopping Season. How times do you see an Amendment or Proposition that has to deal with local issues and the small business community?

4. Environmental Sustainability

Local stores help to sustain vibrant, compact, walk-able town centers-which in turn are essential to reducing sprawl, automobile use, habitat loss, and air and water pollution. Again, those shopping districts around your town are designed to help more than just your wallet!

5. Public Benefits and Costs

Local stores in town centers require comparatively little infrastructure and make more efficient use of public services relative to big box stores and strip shopping malls. IN Denver, we are gaining more ‘open air’ shopping centers, which can be a result of the cost of building a more closed in shopping mall.

6. Product Diversity

A multitude of small businesses, each selecting products based, not on a national sales plan, but on their own interests and the needs of their local customers, guarantees a much broader range of product choices. Think of the craft stores that have certain products that would not be found on the shelves of the big box chain stores.

7. Local Character and Prosperity

In an increasingly homogenized world, communities that preserve their one-of-a-kind businesses and distinctive character have an economic advantage. Again, my mind recalls the ‘Old Towne’ shopping centers that are littered throughout the Denver Metro Area.  

8. Competition

A marketplace of tens of thousands of small businesses is the best way to ensure innovation and low prices over the long-term. Having a small-town feeling no matter how big or small your city is!

9. Community Well-Being

Locally owned businesses build strong communities by sustaining vibrant town centers, linking neighbors in a web of economic and social relationships, and contributing to local causes. Neighbors helping out neighbors can be impactful in so many ways!

10. Job and Wages

Locally owned businesses create more jobs locally and, in some sectors, provide better wages and benefits than chains do. Think back to your first job – was it at a big box chain store or a local spot around the corner? If your kids are near that age, what would you prefer them to work at?

I hope this list has inspired you to shop local and small 12 months of the year, not just 2 months. Go out and explore all the great shops around your neighborhood! Happy Holiday Shopping Season to all!