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Merchants Participate in 'Small Business Saturday'
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- Small businesses in the Mahoning and Shenango valleys and their advocates are rolling out the welcome mat to who shoppers they hope still have money left in their wallets this weekend after running the Black Friday gauntlet. It's all part of "Small Business Saturday, established by American Express in 2010 as the Saturday after Thanksgiving.
Merchants in Sharon, Pa. have planned a day of events for Nov. 30 beginning with a noon ribbon-cutting and concluding with the annual Night of Lights tree-lighting ceremony.
In Mahoning County, Armstrong Cable Co. is supporting the event with advertisements and banners, said Erin Sheader, business development executive at the company’s north Lima office. Operating in five states, Armstrong serves local customers primarily in Mahoning County suburbs and part of Trumbull County.
“It’s basically just supporting our small businesses,” Sheader said. “We believe that the local small businesses are critical to the communities they serve.” As a small cable company, “we know what it’s like to compete with larger companies so we encourage people to support their small businesses,” she added.
American Express card holders can preregister their eligible card online for a $10 credit if they “Shop Small” on Small Business Saturday and purchase $10 or more at a qualifying merchant. Last year the event resulted in an estimated $5.5 billion being spent at small businesses, according to the American Express website promoting the event.
The National Federation of Independent Business is urging its members to participate in Small Business Saturday. “Small Business Saturday is an opportunity for each of us to give back, to invest some of our hard-earned dollars back into our local and community businesses, and keep Main Street America strong," said Dan Danner, president and CEO of the NFIB.
“Small Business Saturday has really exploded all over the country,” observed Laura Ackley, general manager of Donna’s Diner and the Buhl Mansion Guesthouse & Spa in Sharon and chairwoman of Greater Sharon Associates, a merchants association. So much attention is paid to Black Friday -- the retail event dominated by national big-box retailers offering huge discounts tthat has bled into the Thanksgiving Holiday -- that small local merchants have gotten lost in the shuffle, she said.
“There’s a national trend to shop more locally and to be more cognizant of [local] craftsmanship,” Ackley obsrved. “There is a new appreciation, or re-found appreciation, for shopping locally and this really just highlights that and brings people back to small cities and locally produced products.”
In 2012, Sharon local merchants threw together a Small Business Saturday event “with a couple of weeks’ notice on a shoestring,” she recalled. “It was so well received we decided to expand on it this year. So we moved our traditional downtown Night of Lights to Small Business Saturday to take advantage of the momentum that is growing nationwide.”
Sharon's Small Business Saturday event will run through 6 p.m. It will include trolley rides, ice sculptures, caroling, the Arts Alive! fine art market at the James E. Winner Arts & Culture Center, children’s activities and pictures with Santa Claus. At 6 p.m., the annual Night of Lights and the lighting of the Christmas tree lighting will take place featuring fireworks, entertainment, free refreshments and horse-drawn sleigh rides.
The event will also kick off DownTown ShopAround, an initiative to encourage people to visit participating downtown Sharon merchants. Individuals who collect signatures from at least half of the participating local merchants through Dec. 21 will be eligible for drawings for $4,000 in prizes donated by local businesses. Anyone who spends $100 or more at eligible Shenango Valley Chamber of Commerce members between Dec. 2 and Dec. 19 is eligible to win an additional $25 American Express gift card.
Copyright 2013 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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