Main Street's turn: Small Business Saturday

Black Friday is over, but 89 million consumers plan to "shop small" on Small Business Saturday, according to a survey by American Express.

It's an effort to promote independent retailers on Main Street.

Now "Small Business Saturday" is being promoted in cities across the country, including New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Miami and Detroit.

Tim Morse, whose ski and snowboard shop Wicked Sharp in West Roxbury, Mass., features local products such as Bean snowboards, is totally sold on the idea of Small Business Saturday.

"I think the small businesses in all of these communities are what support the communities, instead of the bigger businesses, because most of our dollars, if they're spent here, they stay here," Morse told CBS Station WBZ.

Smallbusinesssaturday.com

Morse said the dollars he makes are spent at neighboring businesses, reports WBZ correspondent Ron Sanders.

"My experience has been that once people find out about your local business and come in, they continue to come back," Elizabeth Swanson, owner of Birch St. House & Garden in Roslindale Village, Mass., told WBZ. "So any time you can get widespread exposure and have even more people come in, it'll be great and it'll help throughout the year,"

The owners of Boston Cheese Cellar, John and Kathy Lacher, also live in Roslindale, and have a deep connection with their community - providing local jobs and featuring art from neighborhood middle schools on the wall.

They told WBZ correspondent Alana Gomez they're taking part in Small Business Saturday, and American Express is helping - offering its customers $25 credit to those who buy something from local shops.

AmEx is also giving $100 worth of free Facebook advertising to 10,000 business owners who sign-up.

Sweetening the deal: Free metered parking in some cities.

In New York's Tribeca neighborhood merchants are celebrating Small Business Saturday with live music, raffles and demonstrations by businesses including a nail salon.

In Detroit free shuttles from the Inside Detroit Welcome Center will be available to transport shoppers to different Detroit neighborhoods in Midtown, New Center, the downtown business district and Eastern Market.

[Jhihmoac]

Nice to see mom and pop retail honored for a change...

[dzaffina]

main street built america and walmart tore main street down.

[venusvegasvada]

I miss these small Mom and Pop stores and restaurants.

Our Govt. and Walmart and the other big chain stores have certainly thrown them under the bus.

There's a huge social loss there too. How much community pride does someone have for their local Walmart? When was the last time to went into Walmart and sat at the table and BS'd with the people there? Yeah.

Decades ago when these mega corps started to crush Mom and Pop's in the US they tried to do the same thing in Germany. There was such an uprising over it they passed "Blue Laws". What they did was make it balanced between the mega corps and the little guys. For example, on the weekends, ALL stores could only be opened for so many hours per day- not 24x7 (because small owners can't stay open 24x7 in most cases). You go to there and see they haven't crushed the Mom and Pops.

Between the rise of mega corps in the US and "Urban Renewal" in the US in the 1950's we allowed our American culture to totally be thrown under the bus.

Just another example of just who is running this country and it's not the average American.

[joeylancaster]

Find free offers from local businesses: http://www.winningcrowd.com/

[notyrants]

It will only be Mainstreet's turn when there is justice in this nation and those responsible for WILLFUL fraud and caused a very destructive economic collapse are held to account in a truly meaningful way and the police are back on the beat, regulators. Till then, these United States will continue on a death spiral.