The 3rd of December will see the fourth Small Business Saturday take place – a campaign which encourages the public to shop at or use the services of small businesses on a specific day each year.
Last year saw £623m spent with small businesses across the UK, an increase of £119m or 24 per cent on the previous year. The campaign trended at number one in the UK on Twitter on the day with more than 100,000 campaign-related tweets being sent. Over 75% of local councils in the UK supported the campaign, giving considerable national reach into local communities.
“Small Business Saturday has been strong in Scotland since its start nearly four years ago, and continues to go from strength to strength.
“The Scottish public has really embraced the campaign and we look forward to meeting more fantastic Scottish businesses as the bus tour comes through Scotland this October,” comments Michelle Ovens MBE, National Campaign Director for Small Business Saturday.
An integral part of the campaign is the Small Biz 100 – one hundred handpicked small firms from across the UK who each year benefit from free exposure associated with the campaign.
Rebecca Christensen of Edinburgh’s Love From Indie Street, one of the campaign’s small business champions says, “Small Business Saturday is a fantastic initiative that I have been involved with for two years now. For the 2015 campaign I ran a series of free surgeries for female small business owners in Edinburgh. 15 women came along to the one to one surgeries on the day where we focused on an area of their business that they were experiencing problems with.
“The day provided a fantastic opportunity to talk about the services that we offer, to engage with local press, raise the profile of my business and also resulted in a number of new clients.”
Naomi Bremner, who runs Orkney Buffalo with her husband Russell, says: “We support the philosophy of Small Business Saturday in everything that we do; the Orkney economy is predominantly small businesses and it is so important that we all work together to promote and encourage the use of small businesses.
“As a business we aim to take as much of our supplies from local, small businesses as we can; and we hope that being part of the Small Biz 100 supports the domino effect of small businesses supporting each other.”
Edinburgh-based Plant ‘n’ Grow founder, Mandy Bailey says: “Being part of the Small Biz 100 provides us with an opportunity to highlight what we do on a bigger scale, something small businesses rarely have the opportunity or the budget to do.
“We get the chance to share our story and journey as a small business and celebrate all that’s great about running a small company in the UK.”
To get involved in this year’s campaign, small business owners are encouraged to visit www.smallbusinesssaturdayuk.com for ideas of how they can benefit from the day.
The website also provides advice for local authorities, small business networks and anyone who wishes to support small firms on the 3rd of December.
