You’ve probably heard of Small Business Saturday (last year over 67% of the general public had), but if you’re an online-only seller, you may not think it’s for you. Not so! Participating in this “shopping day” this holiday season can be massively valuable for all types of small businesses.
American Express started Small Business Saturday in 2010 with the aim of helping drive holiday shopping traffic to small, local businesses, and by every measure the initiative’s success has grown ever since:
In 2011, the day caught the attention of President Obama, who issued a statement in support of it. Soon the governors of 41 states followed suit.
From 2012-2014:
- Public awareness of the day increased from 37% to 67%.
- The number of people who shopped on the day increased from 74 Million to 88 Million.
- Total spending increased from $5.5 Billion to $14.3 Billion.
The Small Business Saturday Facebook page has over 3.3M likes, and on the day in 2014, more than 126k Small Business Saturday tweets were sent.
Even if you’re online-only—and even if you don’t accept Amex—American Express welcomes you to take part. And there’s plenty in it for the small eCommerce business:
- Amex will list you in their online directory as a participating business.
- You can be a part of the social media conversation, including leveraging the #ShopSmall and #SmallBizSat twitter hashtags.
- Amex will send you both digital-only (sample social posts, campaign emails, customizable images) and digital versions of print marketing materials—all of which you can leverage in your online advertising and in the packages you ship leading up to the day.
Not convinced? For more tips, see our Sell Big on Small Business Saturday Guide.
Click here or the picture below to view the Sell Big on Small Business Saturday Guide
The signup deadline is November 9th, so don’t delay!
Rob Zaleski
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