Small businesses are the backbone of the U.S. economy and help hold the local communities together; that’s why we at SunUp Group are passionate about helping and supporting our local small business community. Over the past two decades, small businesses have created 65% of net new jobs and their importance to local communities extends even further. For every $100 spent in locally-owned, independent stores, $68 returns to the community through taxes, payroll and other expenditures, according to the small business advocacy group The 3/50 Project. So that is why we are dedicating this week’s blog post to Small Business Saturday and shopping local.
The second annual Small Business Saturday is this weekend, on Saturday, November 26th. Small Business Saturday was created to support the local small business community and help drive shoppers to local merchants across the United States on what is known as one of the busiest shopping weekend of the year. The movement is largely using social media to drive awareness, and is encouraging small businesses to do the same.
Maybe you would love to support the shop local movement but are not sure exactly how to do that? Below is a list of ways that you can find local businesses in your community to support:
1. Become a fan of the Small Business Saturday Facebook page, and you can type in your zip code to find local small businesses in your neighborhood. What a great way to explore some new shops in your own backyard!
2. Swellr: Swellr.com is in Beta version, but promotes shopping locally and supporting the local schools at the same time. As a consumer, you can log onto Swellr and buy a voucher that is redeemable in local stores for goods/services. When a voucher is purchased, it triggers a donation by the participating business to a local education need of your choice. This website is a double whammy – you’re supporting local small businesses AND your local schools!
3. Use the eat well guide website. With the eatwell.org website, you can find local restaurants, food trucks, bakeries, and markets to support that use/sell local, sustainable and organic foods. Eat Well allows you to select types of business and their specialties so you can narrow the results so it’s not so overwhelming, and you can also download a local food guide for many U.S. metropolitan areas!
4. Frequent your local Farmer’s Market. Farmer’s Markets have not only locally grown foods, but crafts, flowers, and locally made products of many varieties. If you don’t know where your local Farmer’s Market is held, check out localharvest.org to search for one in your community.
5. Sign up to get local daily deals in your community. There is now a plethora of daily deal sites to choose from, that offer deep discounts in your community. Keep in mind, however, that many of these daily deal sites do not promote just local small businesses, they offer deals for nationwide chains as well. There are daily deal sites like RapidBuyr.com that are popping up however, which cater exclusively to small and mid-size businesses for their local daily deals, so that might be a good option if you don’t want to weed out the national chain deals from the larger group buying sites like Groupon or LivingSocial.
We hope you are now prepared and enthusiastic about shopping local! Have a happy Thanksgiving and have fun shopping!
