Small Business Saturday UK – Saturday, December 3

SMALL Business Saturday will be held this year on Saturday, December 3 – and the Small Business Saturday Bus Tour will be stopping in North East Lincolnshire as part of its 5-week UK tour leading up to the day.

The Bus Tour will visit Grimsby’s Riverhead on November 4, from 10am-2pm and to help promote the event North East Lincolnshire Council will be offering free parking in council-run car parks on Saturday, December 3. The council is encouraging businesses to get involved in the campaign and to maximise the opportunity of the tour bus visit, it is hoping to have a number of market stalls available if any small businesses wish to take one to promote themselves and/or their shopping area.

Small Business Saturday began in America as a way for small businesses to counteract the ‘Black Friday’ and ‘Cyber Monday’ deals that large organisations were offering in the lead up to Thanksgiving and Christmas.   

Small Business Saturday UK began in 2013 and is a national ‘grassroots’ non-commercial campaign highlighting small business success and encouraging consumers to ‘shop local’ and support small businesses in their communities. 

In 2015 customers spent £623m with small businesses on Small Business Saturday, an increase of 24% on the previous year. On social media, the hashtag #SmallBizSatUK trended at number 1 all day with over 100,000 tweets sent in support of the day reaching more than 25-million people. 

There are lots of ways you can get involved in the campaign - one of North East Lincolnshire’s small businesses – Red Herring Games – has been chosen as one of the 100 small businesses to be highlighted during the UK campaign. Jo and the Red Herring Games team will be at the tour bus and she is planning a range of activities for both the tour bus day and Small Business Saturday. 

Now is the time to start thinking about what you will do.  Some ideas include: 

• Decorate - dress up your shop window in the weeks leading up to the day with posters, balloons and more.
• Collaborate - work with fellow traders and host a festival, business trail, raffle or similar
• Get social - promote how you’re getting involved on your social media channels
• Host - have a ‘shop small’ soiree with customers
• Remind – your customers to come and support you
• Email - utilise your database and email your customers
• Spread the word offline – consider creating postcards to hand out to customers
• Publicise a discount, coupon or offer for those who shop with you on Small Business Saturday

• Get on the map – register your business on the website www.smallbusinesssaturdayuk.com