Small Business Saturday is coming!

American Express's Small Business Saturday® Is Coming

Small Business Saturday® takes place on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. This year (2013), the American Express sponsored event is taking place on November 30th. The timing takes advantage of the "peak" holiday shopping season and has a noticeable impact on the sales of participating merchants. Consumers were estimated to spend $5.5 billion last year during Small Business Saturday® and hopes are that this year will be even stronger.

Since 2010, this shopping "holiday" fits neatly between Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Whereas Black Friday focuses on big box retail establishments and Cyber Monday on e-commerce businesses, Small Business Saturday encourages holiday shoppers to visit small, local brick and mortar stores.

For merchants who accept AMEX cards, there is the opportunity to create free personalized online ads that will run in the weeks leading up to Small Business Saturday. Qualifying businesses may be featured in ads on local websites and may also be featured on ShopSmall.com. To take advantage of this, merchants must apply by November 4th, 2013. Information on eligibility is available along with the Terms of Participation on the AMEX web site.

Advertisements created through American Express for this campaign are scheduled to run from 11/11–11/30. AMEX also offers themed graphics for merchants to use on their web sites or in physical marketing materials. It's a pretty cool campaign, drawing attention to this important segment of commerce that is often overlooked by our consumer culture around the holidays.