November 1, 2024

Small Business Saturday 2024: 11 Ideas to Promote Sales November 30 through the Holidays

Electronic Payments Team

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Small Business Tips

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Small Business Saturday^® is coming soon! Saturday, November 30, is this year’s post-Thanksgiving kickoff to the holiday season for small business owners (and consumers looking to Shop Small^®). 

To help you get ready, we’ve rounded up 11 ideas you can use to promote your business and boost sales this November and all season long.

1. Get Free Small Business Saturday Resources from American Express

As the creator of Small Business Saturday^®, American Express releases resources every year so small business owners can make the most of the holiday season shopping rush. 2024 marks the 15th annual event, and we’re excited to help connect you with this year’s new batch of digital resources, including social assets, banners, and language to use in your blogs and emails—all available for free from American Express!

Visit AmericanExpress.com/SBS to find resources like:

• Ready-to-use social media posts
• Free signs and supplies for your store, including stickers to share with customers!
• Your business listing on the Amex Shop Small^® map
• And more!

These resources are a great way to get the word out to existing and new customers and let them know you’re open and ready to help them get started on their holiday shopping!

2. Promote Special Offers for Small Business Saturday

Many businesses encourage customers to come out for Small Business Saturday by offering limited-time deals, exclusive product launches, and creative bundles. Consider offering discounts for customers who shop early or make larger purchases, such as “Buy One, Get One 50% Off” or “10% off when you spend $50 or more.”

You can also run flash sales that last only a few hours during the day to drive urgency or provide free gifts with each purchase to delight customers and increase foot traffic. These limited-time offers will create excitement and help attract both new and returning customers.

3. Manage Inventory Efficiently

Inventory is an all-important consideration when it comes to increasing holiday sales—and the sooner you plan ahead, the better positioned you’ll be to cope with any supply chain issues. While you want to have enough product on hand to minimize out-of-stock items, which can translate to lost sales and unhappy shoppers, you don’t want excess inventory you can’t sell piling up and eating into your profits. With a POS system like Exatouch^®, you can differentiate best-selling items from ones that aren’t moving to make informed purchasing decisions. This smart POS even enables you to manage purchase orders and vendors while reconciling deliveries quickly.

4. Consider Collaborating with Local Business Neighbors

Teaming up with nearby businesses can create a larger event and draw more customers into your area. Cross-promotions—such as offering discounts when customers show receipts from another local shop—or co-hosting an event like a holiday market will encourage shoppers to stay and explore more businesses.

A “shop crawl” could be another collaborative Small Business Saturday idea where you encourage customers to collect stamps at participating stores for a chance to win a prize.

5. Hire the Right Number of Seasonal Employees

With more customers filling up your store, you’ll need extra employees to answer questions and ring up sales. View staffing reports from prior Small Business Saturdays (or similar holidays) to help reduce your chances of labor shortages. Did you have enough team members on your busiest sales days? Or were you overstaffed on slower days? Make the most of your resources by understanding the times you need to staff up and when you can get by with a leaner team. You may need to onboard fewer seasonal employees than you think, which is a significant benefit in a tight labor market.

6. Make Gift Cards Part of Your Strategy

With the gift-giving season kicking off, make sure your gift card offering is ready to go on Small Businesses Saturday! You can promote gift cards in-store or promote e-gift cards on your website or through email campaigns through eGiftSolutions^®.

Looking for a way to make a special gift card offer for Small Business Saturday? Try offering gift cards with a bonus—for example: “Buy a $50 gift card, get a $10 gift card.” This gives your customers an easy way to give a gift while also encouraging them to return and spend on themselves.

7. Determine Your Store’s Optimal Holiday Hours

If your POS has robust reporting capabilities, you can retrieve invaluable insights from your sales reports to help you prep for the coming holiday season. It might make sense to offer special Small Business Saturday hours to capture the right ROI—see what the data tells you!

Post-Small Business Saturday, you can continue to optimize for the rest of the holiday season. For example, if you typically close at 6:00 in the evening, but a majority of your sales occur after 5:30 PM, consider extending your hours for the holidays to accommodate more shoppers. Knowing which days and times it makes sense to stay open longer can lift your sales significantly—either by accommodating your regular customers’ preferences to shop later or by attracting new customers who couldn’t visit your store when it closed earlier.

Since retail data is still course correcting after the pandemic, we recommend looking back over the past several years (including 2019, to get a pre-COVID baseline) to get an idea of when your store experienced its busiest times and biggest sales during previous holiday seasons.

Learn more about the reporting features Exatouch^® offers to help you make informed decisions.

8. Offer Freebies and Samples to Increase Foot Traffic

Consider handing out free samples of products or small gifts with purchases—if you make sure you’re promoting the offer correctly, this can be a great way to entice customers into your store. Seasonal giveaways, like a free ornament or tote bag with each purchase, are especially popular for Small Business Saturday. Even a simple “first 50 customers get a free gift” offer can create excitement and encourage early visits.

9. Reach Out Across Channels

Use every platform you have to promote your Small Business Saturday presence! Use email campaigns, social media, and your website to alert your subscriber base about special offers you’re running for Small Business Saturday so you can get on your customers’ radars early. 

Don’t forget the little things, too! Consider:

• Using social hashtags like #ShopSmall and #SmallBusinessSaturday to reach a larger audience
• Updating your Google My Business listing with your hours and promotions
• Adding Small Business Saturday info to your website 

10. Combine Small Business Saturday Shopping with Charity

Giving back during Small Business Saturday can encourage shoppers to spend while supporting a good cause. Some charitable promotions that other SMBs have run include:

• Donating a portion of sales to a local charity
• Offering discounts to customers who bring in donations for toy or food drives
• Partnering with a local nonprofit to raise money or awareness during the event

11. See What Trends Predict for Small Business Saturday and Beyond

Your POS has so much valuable information, but it’s a good idea to supplement your data with larger studies and check out what analysts are expecting for the 2024 holidays. Every year offers unique challenges, and this year is no exception! Take a look at our 2024 holiday consumer insights guide for more data to help you strategize for the season.

Celebrate a Successful Small Business Saturday in 2024

As we state in our company story, Electronic Payments exists “to help small to midsize businesses (SMBs) prosper.” We’re proud to be helping American Express promote SMBs this season and all year long! Take the right first step to boost sales this holiday season and encourage customers to Shop Small^®—find Amex resources at AmericanExpress.com/SBS.

800-966-5520 | www.electronicpayments.com