Small Business | Forum « Did You Get a Bump from Small Biz Saturday? (TOTW: 11.25.12)

Did You Get a Bump from Small Biz Saturday? (TOTW: 11.25.12) (10 posts)

Topic tags: small biz, Small Business Saturday

Rich Brooks said
5 months, 3 weeks ago:
Just wondering how many of you got a bump in sales from Small Business Saturday? Did anyone mention they were shopping with you because of the “holiday?”
Also, did you do any promotion around Small Biz Saturday through social media? If so, what was it?
Finally, is this something that’s only an American event, or is it global?
@rich-brooks | # | Top
E N Brown said
5 months, 3 weeks ago:
Happy Monday @rich-brooks
No. I don’t gear up for many of those types of things. I know American Express, Facebook and many other places of various different categories do though.
Since many worldwide businesses and social media places do support Small Biz Saturday, I am guessing that it has gone global to a certain extent. I am usually too busy with family and my own client base to follow all the special events and holidays that many businesses jump on for additional sales.
When I was still retailing online I did do holidays, etc. but not so much anymore. And actually, there are only a few holidays that I pay attention to, when it comes to sales of my own skill set and crew.
Eileen
@supereb | # | Top
Ann at greenoak said
5 months, 3 weeks ago:
we did small business saturday…we included it in an email but we also were promoting a snowman special for the big weekend…..also we used several of their logos on our facebook page   the week before….. there was so much   publicity about it and buying local i   think it was a good thing and i would   do it again….
i cant really   judge how it worked, since we   promoted the weekend in several ways…… no one mentioned it….but we were swamped   all weekend and   broke records from previous years…. 100 sales on   saturday and almost that many on friday and sunday……..
thanksgiving   weekend is always   a great holiday for us but all holidays are good for us….since many   customers bring their out of town friends and family to our store…. LOVE THAT!!!
@annfurnivall | # | Top
Mitch Rezman said
5 months, 3 weeks ago:
We get money from PayPal in seconds, from M/C, Visa & Discover in hours – American Express 3 – 5 days – Nope
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Ann at greenoak said
5 months, 3 weeks ago:
@mitch-rezman we like american express because many of our upper end customers prefer it and are glad and kind of suprised that we happily take it…its kind of a snobby thing i guess…
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Mitch Rezman said
5 months, 3 weeks ago:
We accept Amex too as there is no bad way to accept money and Amex is great to work with. Trying to talk with Visa or M/c is like trying to talk to Facebook.
They’re just arbitrary - the bigger the purchase the longer the wait for funds. That’s why we don’t support their small business Saturday program
I’m also unhappy with their Business Knowledge Share discussion group on LinkedIn. They have lightweights posting bad and misleading information on important subjects like SEO – I’m amazed AMEX tolerates it. I reached out to the moderator when I saw some very bad advice posted and they thanked me for my comment.
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Ann at greenoak said
5 months, 3 weeks ago:
we just got 2 huge things from small business saturday….unintended consequences!!!
a tv station called yesterday , they are doing a week on small businesses and saw our tv ad and then our website…!!! and are coming to the store friday to film  a report for   their show , she wants to film us at work on   something made in indiana……. i couldnt believe it and so glad i didnt hang up on her thinking it was a junk call….im pretty sure    american epresses ss saturday promotion had a lot to do with this…and the   newsperson seeing   our tv ad…on a different station…
the other was   from twitter…my tekk person mentioned our   store on her twitter and she got offered 100$ of free ads from twitter, part of their   promotion of small local businesses…. i have no idea what this entails but she did it….
so im very happy   for the whole thing……
@annfurnivall | # | Top
Geng said
5 months, 2 weeks ago:
My experience of saturday is that seldom willing buy products on that day from my web site,especially for my BJD products most of the orders are coming from monday to friday.i am not sure if it can run well if i do some promotion.
@donald | # | Top
Rich Brooks said
5 months, 2 weeks ago:
@annfurnivall that’s great!
@rich-brooks | # | Top
Ann at greenoak said
5 months, 2 weeks ago:
to me the hard part about supporting small business comes down to price….. the customers love the idea of buying american etc etc…. but if they can save 20%% there they go to the cheapest places……so its hard to makeit work on the vast middle of goods…it works well for high priced upper end arty market maybe but most retail and manufacturing is in competition with china prices…..i have to know they arent going to pay me 30$$ for something they can find easily for 15$$….. thats kind of why our inventory is so unusual…and that works fairly well…
but small business saturday and the political cycle has brought the subject up in good ways….. imho, the big companies could try a lot harder to make stuff here…
@annfurnivall | # | Top