National Day Calendar, CNBC, and Retail Archeology help celebrate Small Business Saturday

Happy Small Business Saturday, a day I've been celebrating since 2011, the first year of this blog!  As National Day Calendar points out, that's only one year after the day started.

American Express founded Small Business Saturday to help businesses with their most pressing need — getting more customers. The day encourages people to shop at small businesses on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. The single day has grown into a powerful movement, and more people are taking part than ever before.

HOW TO OBSERVE

Support a small business and use #SmallBusinessSaturday to post on social media.

HISTORY

American Express founded Small Business Saturday in 2010.

To help celebrate, I have videos relevant to the occasion from CNBC and Retail Archeology.  First, CNBC reported yesterday Small Business Saturday gets a big boost.

The kickoff to the holiday shopping isn’t just for major national retailers. It’s also a crucial sales time for neighborhood retailers. Reporter Kate Rogers meets small biz owners gearing up for the season both in store and in online Etsy stores.

"Shopping Small" has become a big deal.

Follow over the jump for the two most recent videos from Retail Archeology, which are about small businesses in and around Phoenix, Arizona.  Sorry, no Michigan businesses this time.

Eric posted the most recent yesterday: The Record Room: Record Store Day!


I am so pleased to see Eric cover a thriving local business instead of a dying major chain.  Unfortunately, his channel wouldn't be complete without covering a business that failed in some way, so here's Book Vault: 2010-2018, which he uploaded last week.

In this episode we take a look at Book Vault, a closing independent bookstore located at Superstition Springs Center. This bookstore was also located at Power Square Mall at one time.

The problem wasn't that the business was unprofitable; it was making money and recently expanded.  Instead, the problem was that the landlord kicked them out on short notice to make way for a national chain tenant.  I've seen that happen before.  It goes to show that malls are not necessarily the best places for small local businesses and sometimes stores go out of business for reasons that are not their fault.

That's it for Small Business Saturday.  Remember, shop small!