Posts Tagged ‘Small Business Saturday’

Small Business Saturday is a nationally recognized shopping day to support your local neighborhood businesses. It falls on the Saturday after Thanksgiving (November 28 this year) every year and serves as a contrast to Black Friday and Cyber Monday, when holiday shopping is typically focused on larger, nationwide organizations. As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to negatively impact the U.S. economy, it is more critical than ever to shop at local businesses to ensure that their goods and services remain under operation as long as possible.

The U.S Small Business Administration classifies a small business as an organization with fewer than 500 employees. As of 2019, there are 30.7 million small businesses in the U.S., and they account for 99.9% of all businesses in the U.S. Additionally, 98.2% of American businesses have less than 100 employees, and 89% of businesses have fewer than 20 employees. Clearly, the heart of commerce and the economy in the U.S. heavily relies on the success of small businesses.

Unfortunately, the majority of small American businesses are facing immense pressure to survive during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the “Shop Small” movement, 62% of small business owners reported that they would be unable to keep their business open unless their sales reach pre-COVID levels by the end of 2020. This has major implications for job growth, since small businesses create 1.5 million jobs in the U.S. every year.

As the holidays arrive, please stay safe and consider supporting your local businesses whether that’s buying a Christmas tree at a local farm, or just stopping by a cafe to grab a cup of coffee. Your patronage ensures that money stays in your community so that businesses can potentially grow. Additionally, please take the time to thank the local employees who continue to work during the midst of the pandemic.

Our teams at Plain City Druggist and Midwestern Compounding Pharmacy are proud to support our community by serving their medication needs.

We thank you for your support, as well!

Please consider stopping by this Saturday, November 28 during our hours of 9:00am-12:00pm.

Please also support our Happy Druggist sister locations on Karl Road in Columbus, in West Jefferson, and in Mechanicsburg.

Resources:

• https://www.shoplocalshopsmall.com/
• https://www.americanexpress.com/us/small-business/shop-small/about/
• https://www.oberlo.com/blog/small-business-statistics
• https://www.sba.gov/page/coronavirus-covid-19-small-business-guidance-loan-resources

There are 30.2 million small businesses in America, defined by the Small Business Administration (SBA) Office of Advocacy as a firm with fewer than 500 employees. This number does not seem so small to most people and that can be verified by the fact than 99.7% of businesses in America fall into that category.  But when we look closer, we see the true essence of what we believe small businesses are. Businesses that employ fewer than 100 workers accounted for 98.2% of businesses in America. Even further, businesses with fewer than 20 workers made up 89% of businesses in America.

Small businesses are responsible for the bulk of new job creation over the last 25 years!  From 1993 to 2016, 61.8% of new jobs were created within small businesses.  In 2015 alone, 1.9 million new jobs were created by small businesses with the majority (1.1 million) coming from businesses that employ fewer than 20 employees.

Unfortunately, despite the impact that small businesses can make on a community, only about half of small businesses survive beyond 5 years and only one-third survive beyond 10 years or longer. This is especially striking when you consider that small businesses employ 58.9 million people, around 47.5% of the country’s total workforce.

Taking all these things into account, we hope that you can see how essential your support for small businesses is for the success of the country. Small businesses truly are the backbone of our economy.

When you break down the data, you can see why it is essential for America to support its small businesses and this Saturday, November 30, is a great opportunity to do so; it is Small Business Saturday.

Small Business Saturday is an American shopping holiday held the Saturday after Thanksgiving every year in support of small businesses. It was first observed in 2010 in support of our small businesses in the face of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, shopping holidays that typically provide excess sales to large businesses.

Supporting local businesses allows you to keep that money in your community, grow the business, and potentially create more jobs for the people of your town, giving back to your community simply by shopping local.

Happy Druggist Pharmacy is proud to be a small business in West Jefferson providing care for its people.  Please consider stopping by our store on Saturday. We are open from 9AM-1PM.  We would love to discuss with you your prescription needs and see how we can serve your family during the holiday season. We are so very thankful for your support over the last three years. We look forward to continuing to grow and to care for this incredible community.

Please also support Plain City Druggist and Midwestern Compounding Pharmacy in Plain City this Saturday and Happy Druggist on Karl Road in Columbus.

After Black Friday and the mad rush to start the holiday shopping season, small businesses ask you to take a deep breath and shop small and locally on Saturday, November 25, Small Business Saturday. 

Shopping locally helps your community in a number of ways:

• Improves your family’s health by eating locally grown produce and food from farmers you know.
• Helps the local economy by keeping money within the community.
• Protects the environment because you’re not wasting fuel and resources traveling long distances to shop.
• Allows you to know the people behind the products you buy.
• Keeps your community unique with interesting stores found nowhere else.
• Supports business owners who also live in your community, are your neighbors, send their kids to the local schools, go to church at your church, pay taxes that benefit your police department and firefighters, support the local PTA and animal shelter, and also shop at other local businesses.

Here is a really cool infographic that shows the benefits of shopping within your own community. Click HERE to take a look.

We hope that you will stop in the pharmacy on Saturday from 9 am until noon and take a moment to shop within our store. We appreciate your loyalty and business so much and your continued support allows us to remain in the Plain City community.

Where you shop matters.

After the flurry and credit card chaos of giant retail shopping sprees on Black Friday, consider shopping small.

Saturday, November 30 is a day to support local and smaller businesses on Small Business Saturday. Founded by American Express in 2010, this day has come to be celebrated each year on the Saturday following Thanksgiving. When you decide to shop small and keep your money locally, you help save your local economy.

According to the 3/50 Project, for every $100 that is spent locally in independent stores, $68 returns to the community through payroll, taxes, and other expenditures. When you spend $100 at a retail chain, only $43 stays within the community. When you buy online, nothing stays in your hometown.

If you have an American Express card, you can sign up on the Small Business Saturday web site to get a $10 statement credit when you make a purchase of $10 or more at a qualifying small business on November 30. Register your American Express Card HERE.

For more information, visit the Small Business Saturday web site HERE.

And LIKE Small Business Saturday on Facebook HERE.

Please consider shopping at all the local businesses in Plain City this coming Saturday. Here in the drugstore, we’ll be giving a ten percent discount on all purchases of $15 or more, excluding prescription medications (which we cannot discount due to rules with insurance companies). But you can still buy gift items and over-the-counter necessities.

And if you do buy gift items, we’ll have someone in the store from 10 am to noon wrapping presents for a donation to Black and Orange Cat Foundation. Bring as many boxes as you want us to wrap and we’ll provide the paper, bows, tape, and gift wrapping expertise for a donation that will help support spay and neuter efforts for stray and homeless cats in the Plain City area.

That brings us to Giving Tuesday. After days of crazy shopping (remember Cyber Monday comes shortly after Black Friday!), Tuesday, December 3 is a day to give back to local charitable organizations who need your help to continue doing good within your community. A group that is near and dear to our heart is, of course, Black and Orange Cat Foundation.

You can make a donation on Giving Tuesday to help Black and Orange with their spay and neuter efforts by visiting their Giving Tuesday donation page HERE.

For more information on Giving Tuesday, go HERE.

To LIKE Giving Tuesday on Facebook, go HERE.

To prepare for Small Business Saturday this coming Saturday, November 30, we wanted to tell you about “i Shop Local.”

The Union County Chamber of Commerce recently launched a program to encourage Union County residents to shop locally and support businesses in their communities. The i Shop Local Union County program pairs shoppers with participating county businesses. The Chamber gives residents cards that can be presented for special offers at participating Union County businesses that display the i Shop Local logo in their windows.

As Tina Knotts, Chamber and Tourism Director noted, “For every $100 we spend at locally-owned businesses, $68 stays right here in Union County, helping businesses grow, purchase services, pay their employees and add jobs so local residents have more money to spend and recirculate through our economy. It’s that easy–just shop local.”

Plain City Druggist is participating in the program. We are not yet listed on the web site, but we will give 5 percent off any gift or over-the-counter item when you present your i Shop Local card. This discount excludes prescription medications, as we cannot discount those due to legal reasons involving insurance company policies.

To find out which other businesses in Union County are participating and get discounts, go HERE.