Take a look at Small Business Saturday if you want a great illustration of how hard it is to change Americans’ shopping habits.
The moniker for the day after Black Friday was launched three years ago by American Express as a corporate-driven “grass roots” movement — an oxymoron if ever there was one — in the hope that it would take off. The credit card company sweetened the deal by offering money back to holders who used their Amex cards at small businesses on that day, and the company put out materials to make it easy for merchants to publicize the idea.
It looked like the perfect formula for a groundswell. The power of a very large financial services firm, in lock step with millions of business owners eager to boost sales by joining in with special deals. An emotional appeal of Main Street tugging on the heartstrings and wallets of shoppers who feel guilty that they abandon community in favor of big-box stores.
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And on top of that, discounts!
Everybody is a winner. Now in its fourth year, Small Business Saturday is part of the language of the shopping season, as familiar as Cyber Monday, right? No, not exactly. Why not?
Supporters, including Leon Davidoff, co-owner of The Paper Station stationery and gift store in Newington’s town center, say Small Business Saturday is growing slowly but surely.
After a good experience last year, Davidoff went all out this year, making posters for 65 local stores and service providers hailing the day, each with its own name on a customized sign.
“It raises awareness about buying locally,” said Davidoff, a West Hartford town council member who has owned the Newington store for two decades with his sister, Susan Davidoff. “Last year we had a line at the register. It’s like the dream of a small retailer to have a line…They all came in, ‘We’re here to support you on Small Business Saturday’”
American Express says its surveys show that 44 percent of consumers know about the national event.
That said, even some of Davidoff’s fellow merchants “had no idea what the dickens it was,” he said.
Maybe that’s just the way the national culture works. Look at the attendance figures for World Series games in baseball’s supposed golden age, the ’50s, and you’ll see plenty of empty seats.
But Small Business Saturday has broader winds against it than just the ingrained habits of busy people — from the timing of it to the fact that Amex sticks in some people’s craws, to the economics of Main Street business to the nature of groundswells in America.
“For me, Small Business Saturday, I don’t see the change,” said Vickie Griffeth, owner of For The Kitchen in Glastonbury.
Sure, she’s participating with a small sign, and she was considering an email blast offering customers a 10 percent discount, something several merchants said they were doing. But she’s not thrilled with the date.
“I would prefer it being a week after,” Griffeth said, rather than having it on a day when shoppers are still focused on the malls.
With her flair for the dramatic, strong presence and droll humor, Griffeth declared, “It has not proven itself to warrant my grandness.”
Other merchants say it makes no sense for them to offer even deeper discounts in the season when the cash register is busy. As Sevanne Ngamariju, owner of Sev Shak Boutique in West Hartford Center wondered, why not have it in the summertime instead?
Then there’s the outright backlash against American Express, which, merchants said, typically charges them a higher percentage rate in its “swipe fees” than Visa and MasterCard. On Tuesday, the Main Street Alliance — an anti-corporate small business group that formed in 2008 — attacked what it called the “hypocrisy” of American Express coming up with this “marketing invention.
The alliance, which has also attacked the National Federation of Independent Business for opposing the Affordable Care Act, noted that American Express launched Small Business Saturday in 2010, immediately after the U.S. Department of Justice sued Amex, Visa and MasterCard charging anti-competitive behavior. And it said Amex “stashes $8.5 billion in profits overseas.”
“The Main Street Alliance encourages consumers to support small businesses this holiday season by shopping locally and paying for their purchases with cash,” the group said in a release on its web site. “But, American Express? Leave home without it.”
Certainly there are merchants who, on their own, have questioned the role of American Express, including Griffeth at For the Kitchen in Glastonbury. But she added that Amex shoppers tend to spend more, so she’s fine with it overall.
Amex defends its tax policies and points out that Small Business Saturday has hundreds of partner groups. Indeed, It seems disingenuous for opponents to attack Small Business Saturday just because it’s an invention of American Express. Attack Amex for something the company is doing that’s harmful, not for what it’s doing for the greater good, complete with mass advertising.
And Small Business Saturday is for the overall good, for the simple reason that Main Street is no longer about dollars and cents in America, at least not directly. It’s about community-building. It really doesn’t matter to the U.S. economy whether sole proprietorship stores do well or not, but it does matter to the people who live in neighborhoods and towns where small stores thrive. That’s why Sen. Richard Blumenthal and Hartford Mayor Pedro Segarra were out on Pratt Street Tuesday, promoting Small Business Saturday.
Even many stores that are thriving can’t afford to advertise using traditional media, and that’s yet another head wind preventing the day from capturing the American shopper’s consciousness.
Last but not least, a phenomenon has to be just that — something new and different. And on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, whether it’s today or 50 years ago or 50 years from now, you can bet that Main Street merchants are busting their butts, offering whatever deals they can, supporting the local Little League and fundraisers for families in need.
That’s what they do. That’s why the cause of Small Business Saturday is noble even if the result is not a tidal wave. For Leon Davidoff, distributing posters for $2 apiece, less than his real cost, was his part of the good fight. The point was made in his mind as he offered posters to national chains in Newington town center.
“When I went to the Starbucks they said ‘We’d have to get corporate approval’,” he said. “I just really believe that the American dream is small business.”
Read The Haar Report at http://www.courant.com/haar