It has been revealed that Small Business Saturday 2017 will land on the 2nd of December this year. In its fifth annual outing, the idea is to highlight and promote British SMEs in the run-up to Christmas and hopefully drum ups bit of business for smaller concerns. All in all, a very good thing.
They say that shoppers spent £717m with small businesses on Small Business Saturday last year and that’s an increase of 15% over 2015 spending. Also over 140,000 tweets were sent on the day reaching 130 million people, trending on Twitter in the UK and globally.
It’s often seen as something of an antidote to Black Friday and Cyber Monday which sees deep discounting on the big sales days and that does favour bigger firms. But it does seems that the marketplaces could be championing their SME sellers (Amazon and eBay both have an army of small sellers who could benefit, after all) and getting involved in Small Business Saturday. Let’s see if they do this year.
Michelle Ovens is the director of Small Business Saturday and says it “has really captured the hearts of communities and it gains in traction year on year. This is not just because it’s a nice message, but because everyone gains from it: small businesses are getting new customers and revenues, customers are meeting new businesses that offer great service, great value and run by local people who know your name when you walk through the door. It is not altruism – communities and the economy benefit when small businesses are better supported.”
In the one hundred days in the run up to Small Business Saturday, they will be highlighting 100 firms from around the UK on Twitter: “we look for businesses that represent the best in British business. We look for geographical spread – from the north of Scotland, to the tip of Cornwall. We look for a range of business models, including high street and digital.” And you can follow them on twitter here and find out more.
