Small Business Saturday is a marketing initiative created and promoted by the

American Express American Express Company (Amex) is an American multinational corporation specialized in payment card services headquartered at 200 Vesey Street in the Battery Park City neighborhood of Lower Manhattan in New York City. The company was found ...

credit card A credit card is a payment card issued to users (cardholders) to enable the cardholder to pay a merchant for goods and services based on the cardholder's accrued debt (i.e., promise to the card issuer to pay them for the amounts plus the o ...

brand to encourage holiday shopping on the Saturday after

Thanksgiving in the United States Thanksgiving is a federal holiday in the United States celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November. It is sometimes called American Thanksgiving (outside the United States) to distinguish it from the Canadian holiday of the same name and re ...

, during one of the busiest shopping periods of the year. This Saturday is always the last one in November, so it falls between November 24 and November 30.

History

First observed in the United States on November 27, 2010, Small Business Saturday is a counterpart to Black Friday and

Cyber Monday Cyber Monday is a marketing term for e-commerce transactions on the Monday after Thanksgiving in the United States. It was created by retailers to encourage people to shop online. The term was coined by Ellen Davis of the National Retail Fe ...

, which feature big box retail and

e-commerce E-commerce (electronic commerce) is the activity of electronically buying or selling of products on online services or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain manageme ...

stores respectively. By contrast, Small Business Saturday encourages holiday shoppers to patronize

brick and mortar Brick and mortar (also bricks and mortar or B&M) refers to a physical presence of an organization or business in a building or other structure. The term ''brick-and-mortar business'' is often used to refer to a company that possesses or leases r ...

businesses that are

small Small may refer to: Science and technology * SMALL, an ALGOL-like programming language * Small (anatomy), the lumbar region of the back * ''Small'' (journal), a nano-science publication * <small>, an HTML element that defines smaller text ...

and

local Local may refer to: Geography and transportation * Local (train), a train serving local traffic demand * Local, Missouri, a community in the United States * Local government, a form of public administration, usually the lowest tier of administrat ...

. ''Small Business Saturday'' is a registered trademark of American Express. The first event was created by American Express, in partnership with the non-profit

National Trust for Historic Preservation The National Trust for Historic Preservation is a privately funded, nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C., that works in the field of historic preservation in the United States. The member-supported organization was founded in 1949 by ...

, Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino, and Roslindale Village Main Street. In 2010, the holiday was promoted by

via a nationwide radio and television

advertising campaign An advertising campaign is a series of advertisement messages that share a single idea and theme which make up an integrated marketing communication (IMC). An IMC is a platform in which a group of people can group their ideas, beliefs, and conc ...

. That year Amex bought

advertising inventory Advertising inventory or media inventory is the space available in the media, advertising, and marketing industries to advertisers on newspapers, magazines, and digital platforms. History Traditionally advertising inventory was sold during upfront ...

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...

, which it in turn gave to its small

merchant account A merchant account is a type of bank account that allows businesses to accept payments in multiple ways, typically debit or credit cards. A merchant account is established under an agreement between an acceptor and a merchant acquiring bank for t ...

holders, and also gave rebates to new customers to promote the event. American Express publicized the initiative using

social media Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social medi ...

, advertising, and

public relations Public relations (PR) is the practice of managing and disseminating information from an individual or an organization (such as a business, government agency, or a nonprofit organization) to the public in order to influence their perception. P ...

. Many local politicians and small business groups in the United States issued proclamations concerning the campaign, which generated more than one million Facebook "like" registrations and nearly 30,000 tweets under the

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

hashtags #smallbusinesssaturday and #smallbizsaturday.

Hashtag

The

hashtag #SmallBusinessSaturday has existed since early 2010 and was used to promote small businesses on any Saturday (not solely that Saturday between Black Friday and Cyber Monday). The hashtag is used in a manner similar to #FollowFriday to highlight favorite local businesses. Additionally, some small business owners have run marketing specials on the November Small Business Saturday to help capitalize on the boost in foot or online traffic, as most customers in this time period are actively shopping for the holidays.

Around the world

Small Business Saturday UK Small Business Saturday is a UK campaign to support small business, taking place on the first Saturday in December each year. The campaign encourages businesses to promote themselves and work with other small businesses, and consumers to ‘ shop ...

began in the United Kingdom in 2013 after the success of Small Business Saturday in the United States of America.

References

External links

Facebook page

US Small Business Administration
{{Christmas American Express Observances based on the date of Thanksgiving (United States) Retailing in the United States Small business Unofficial observances Saturday observances Recurring events established in 2010 2010 establishments in the United States

History

Hashtag

Around the world

See also

References

External links