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Last November, Victoria Fantauzzi and Karen King looked forward to a busy holiday season for their new online retail business, La Bella Figura Beauty. They figured that sales of their organic skin-care products and perfumes would naturally increase, and so they didn’t do anything special to entice shoppers.
We wanted to make it easy for you to find great gifts from locally owned businesses. So we created the Independent We Stand Holiday Gift Guide as a way for you to find and share the special items that you can only find at independently owned businesses.
November 24th is the third annual Small Business Saturday, a day dedicated to supporting small businesses nationwide. We are proud to be partnering with American Express once again to help make this event the biggest day of the year for small businesses. This year, over 100 million people will “shop small” on Small Business Saturday.
As Hurricane Sandy worked its way inland Tuesday, small-business owners along the East Coast spent most of the day sizing up the damages left in the storm’s wake—if they could get to their businesses at all.
“I dreamed for a long time of opening a store with my daughter, Susan,” says Erin Blanton, co-owner of Pufferbellies in Staunton, Virginia. Pufferbellies is a locally-owned specialty toy store that carries the smart, unique toys that are so hard to find in the endless aisles at huge chain stores. “Susan is so knowledgeable about child development and children’s literature.
The big food makers face a serious challenge for 2013: Consumers will want to eat even “smaller.” Not smaller as in less, but smaller as in locally grown, inspired by street vendors and loaded with fresh, veggie concoctions. So says a 2013 food trends report by the research firm Culinary Visions, scheduled to be released on Tuesday.
Perhaps nothing symbolized the economic downturn like the sight of an empty, closed restaurant. Eateries have been shutting their doors steadily since 2009…until now.
Social media can be a double-edged sword for businesses. On the one hand, businesses can increase their reach and foster new relationships by using social media, but social media also can hurt businesses in a big way if not used correctly.
Linda Freed and Debra Latynski own Dolce Pizzelle Cookie Co. in Hammondsville, Ohio. This is their story of how a family tradition turned into owning their own business.
The National Retail Federation’s 2012 Halloween consumer survey reports a record 170 million people plan to celebrate Halloween this year. According to the survey, consumers are also expected to spend more, with the average person spending $79.82 and an estimated total of $8.0 billion for Halloween spending in 2012. Imagine what an impact you could make on your local community if you purchased decorations, costumes and candy from locally owned businesses?
