Registers ring on Small Business Saturday
By Steve Herring
Published in News on November 26, 2017 3:05 AM
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News-Argus/CASEY MOZINGO
Stephanie Smith hands Megan Evans her receipt at Outdoor Shoppe in downtown Goldsboro during the Shop Small Saturday event that hopes to promote shopping at locally owned businesses.
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News-Argus/CASEY MOZINGO
Alex Scott, 16, looks through the clothing in downtown Goldsboro's newest retail store, Southern Rebel, Saturday during the Shop Small event. The store was among the businesses offering discounts to promote shopping at local stores.
"Hot chocolate," squealed 4-year-old Emma as she took the cup from her older sister, Alex.
"It's good," Emma said -- good enough to momentarily distract her from the colorful hair streamers on the table at The Peach Boutique.
Emma said she likes shopping for grapes and apples with her buggy, but not hot chocolate.
Emma was shopping with her sister, Alex, 16, and their mother, Dena Hill, Saturday morning during the Shop Small Saturday promotions downtown.
"We are here specifically for Shop Small, but we come downtown quite often to shop these little places," Hill said. "They are cozy. Some of them have unique stuff that you can't find elsewhere.
"She (Alex) turned me onto this little place because of the coffee. I just like the unique things that I can find in here. I am looking for a few gifts and whatever else I find that I might want to take home."
While the store, and others downtown were busy, it lacked the frantic pace of Black Friday shopping something Hill said she did not do.
"I don't miss it," she said. "If I do it, it is online."
It is important to support small stores, she said.
"Most of these small shops, that's their family," Hill said. "They are family owned, and that is their family income. I would rather support them than these big corporations on this.
"A lot of times they are more friendly in these little places, too. We just like it, the feel of it. We like to support local people."
American Express created Small Business Saturday in 2010, with the Shop Small motto, in an effort to help small businesses at the start of the holiday gift buying season.
The majority of retailers across the nation are small businesses, with 98 percent of all retail companies employing fewer than 50 people, according to the National Retail Federation.
The National Retail Federation forecast that out of the 71 million U.S. consumers hoping to shop the Saturday after Thanksgiving, 76 percent say they will do so specifically to support Small Business Saturday.
A quarter of all holiday shoppers say they plan to purchase holiday items from local and small businesses this year.
April Melrose, owner of The Peach Boutique, handed out Shop Small bags, provided by American Express, to customers.
Anyone who filled the bag received a 60 percent discount.
The Peach Boutique, 108 S. Center St., offers women's clothing, accessories and a variety of gift items.
"Shop Small just brings money back into your own community," Melrose said. "So the more that we can emphasis that, the less that we spend in the big box stores -- it is a win-win for us.
"With your small stores you get the one-of-a-kind items that are not available at your big box because your big box carries mass productions of items versus the small, unique locally made item. Or items that we are able to handpick ourselves as small shops."
Shop Small is nationwide program, but there are several local programs year-round geared to promoting small businesses, she said.
"As far as our community, we are doing everything that we can to push small as often as we can," she said.
She thinks those programs have been successful.
Wendy Pittman of Fremont, who was making a day of Shop Small, said she is a "huge supporter" of downtown.
She started at Little Elite Boutique, moved to 31 Red and then to The Peach Boutique for coffee and treats. From there she was headed to The Outside Shoppe/Bicycle World and Carolina Pine Country Store followed by lunch at the Laughing Owl.
"We are meeting a group of friends here, and we are going to spend the day here," she said. "It is a lot of fun. We have got to keep these people in business because they have to pay their phone bill, their light bill and their kids have got to go to dance.
"Downtown has been revitalized and we have got to keep it."
There are some vacant building that have got to be filled, she said.
"I think we need to reinvest our money in our people," she said. "And I feel safer down here, too. There is a lot to do downtown now."
Pittman said she would like to see even more downtown and not just on Center Street.
She would like to see more development along the side streets, too.
"We are working that way," she said.
Small shops were what brought Lynne Wuest downtown.
"We were hearing that today is the day for small shops, and I am a big supporter of small shops," she said as she browsed around The Outside Shoppe/Bicycle World. "I think that is what makes America strong."
America started on small shops, she said.
"We got rid of them at one time with all of these big Wal-Mart-type stores, and now they are coming back," Wuest said. "I will support them."
Wuest said she was not shopping for anything in particular, but that she was going to buy something.
Mike Wiggins, owner of The Outside Shoppe/Bicycle World, said he was pleased with the traffic through the store Saturday morning.
"The Shop Small and Black Friday kind of all fall into one weekend," he said. "The Shop Small is a good thing for people to get out and support their local small businesses, keep income in the community and help one another by shopping small."
Also, it encouraged shoppers to buy local and not online, he said.
A a retailer, the competition is not other local shops -- it is the internet and people shopping online Wiggins said.
Campaigns like Shop Small helps businesses because some people are inspired to go out and support local businesses, he said.
"That is really what a local mom-and-pop store like ours is all about -- we are here for the community," Wiggins said. "We like the family feel. When you come in you will know some of us. You will know our families, you will know us locally.
"Whereas sometimes the big box store you might not even get good customer service. You come in and nobody may not speak to you for 30 minutes. Where here it is the small-town family feel. We want everybody to feel welcome. They know our families, we know their families and just support one another."