You’ve probably noticed this cool logo around town. It’s for the 2nd annual Small Business Saturday on November 26, and it encourages support for local and private businesses.
I’m so excited by this—Shop Small!
Okay, I should really point out there’s actually some corporate thinking behind this seemingly “mom and pop” event. Lots of corporate.
American Express brainstormed Small Business Saturday in 2010 as a shopping day strategically tucked between Black Friday and Cyber Monday. The company is now offering $100 in free Facebook advertising to the first 10,000 small business who sign up as Amex-accepting merchants.
FedEx also got in on the action. Since November 1, it’s been giving away Shop-Small American Express gift cards on its Facebook page, each worth $25. It’s also offering 20% savings to businesses that use FedEx to print Small Business Saturday posters for their stores.
So, yes, it’s a bit corporate. But let’s support Small Business Saturday anyway. It has so many benefits, just like small businesses themselves do.
And here are ten reasons they deserve our patronage. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, small businesses:
- Represent 99.7 percent of all employer firms.
- Employ about half of all private sector employees.
- Pay 43 percent of total U.S. private payroll.
- Have generated 65 percent of net new jobs over the past 17 years.
- Create more than half of the nonfarm private GDP.
- Hire 43 percent of high tech workers (scientists, engineers, computer programmers, and others).
- Are 52 percent home-based and 2 percent franchises.
- Made up 97.5 percent of all identified exporters and produced 31 percent of export value in FY 2008.
- Produce 16.5 times more patents per employee than large patenting firms.
Source: U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Census Bureau and Intl. Trade Admin.; Advocacy-funded research by Kathryn Kobe, 2007 (archive.sba.gov/advo/ research/rs299tot.pdf) and CHI Research, 2003 (archive.sba.gov/advo/re- search/rs225tot.pdf); U.S. Dept. of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics.
So, tell us! What small business are you going to shop at this Saturday?