Sales associate Lindsay Purcell, center, shows watches to Courtney Cox, right, and her fiancee Kris McNally at Rone Regency Jeweler in Chattanooga. Small Business Saturday is a shopping day for local businesses that follows Thanksgiving and Black Friday.What is Small Business Saturday?American Express drummed up the “holiday” starting with the Saturday after Thanksgiving in 2010 as a way to encourage shoppers to support local and small businesses. It’s the counterpart to Black Friday and Cyber Monday, which feature big-box retail and e-commerce shopping, respectively. The credit card company offers rebates to cardholders who buy from local businesses on that day, this year up to $30. For more information check shopsmall.com.Where to goYou can count on pretty much every store to be open today, many with sales and promotions. In addition, from 11 a.m to 4 p.m., Chattanooga Public Library will have an artisan craft fair featuring local talent who sell on Etsy.com.
If you’ve never caught word of Small Business Saturday, no one would be surprised.
It’s marking only its fifth year today, conceived by credit card giant American Express to coax holiday shoppers into brick-and-mortar businesses that are local and small.
Plus, even many of the stores that take part in Main Street’s counterpart to Black Friday don’t promote the shopping day by mounting placards beneath their awnings or posting ads on their websites — the onslaught typical of behemoth chains and big-box stores during the Thanksgiving weekend cash grab.
Still, those small-scale retailers count on sales they ring up the Saturday after Thanksgiving, whatever name that day takes on. More so, to hear them tell it, Saturday sales in general count a lot during holiday season and sometimes Black Friday can be as busy as so-called Small Business Saturday.