Small Business Saturday is held on the Saturday after Thanksgiving during one of the busiest shopping times of the year. This year Congressman Steve Womack visited several locally owned small businesses, stressing the importance of shopping local.
“Anytime you can promote shopping locally, those dollars are circulating back through the community and providing jobs and opportunities for a lot of other people,” Womack said.
Womack uses the term "showrooming" to describe people who come into a local business to check out merchandise and talk to experts but ultimately buy the item online at a cheaper cost.
“We`ve got a smart consumer that`s using their computers and iPhones and different things when they come in the store to check prices,” said Sean Kaiser, Bedford Camera and Video Store Manager. “We have to be on top of our game in that respect or else that customer may order that on their smartphone while they are sitting out in the parking lot.”
A business qualifies as a small business if it has fewer than 500 employees. According to a recent study by the U.S. Small Business Administration, nearly 97 percent of businesses in Arkansas are small and three-quarters of them have no employees.
Kaiser said it's important to support local businesses because local businesses support the community.
“We involve ourselves with Race for the Cure, RazorFest, different things that we can get involved with, helping with either the print services that we do, things from our sign shop,” Kaiser said.
Bedford Camera and Video is just one of many locally owned businesses in Northwest Arkansas.
Boutiques like Impressions and Riffraff also took part in Small Business Saturday.
If you missed out on all the Small Business Saturday deals you can check social media. Several locally owned businesses have taken to Twitter and Facebook to promote sales and deals.
American Express founded Small Business Saturday to help small businesses get more exposure during one of the biggest shopping weekends of the year.
Small Business Saturday was first celebrated on November 27, 2010.