NEW YORK (AP) — New York is trying to help independent merchants by pioneering Small Business Saturday on the weekend between Black Friday and Cyber Monday — traditionally two of the busiest shopping days of the year.<\/p>\n
Business owners who signed up get $100 worth of Facebook advertising, financed by American Express, which also promised $25 credit to 100,000 clients using their cards Saturday at small shops and boutiques.<\/p>\n
“Black Friday is mostly for big stores, so it’s nice to have an incentive to shop in your own neighborhood,” said Kari Johnson, manager of Whisk, a cookware store with two venues, in Brooklyn and lower Manhattan. “We’re doing it to get people out to shop locally.”<\/p>\n
A sign on the counter informs customers about the program, which requires registration.<\/p>\n
The plan was launched earlier this month by Mayor Michael Bloomberg and American Express CEO Kenneth Chenault.<\/p>\n
Bloomberg calls small businesses “the backbone of our economy and the glue that holds communities together.”<\/p>\n
Word about Small Business Saturday was spread on Facebook and Twitter.<\/p>\n
Participants included the Crawford Doyle Booksellers on Manhattan’s East Side.<\/p>\n
Manager Thomas Talbot said he didn’t think many New Yorkers had heard about the first Small Business Saturday.<\/p>\n
“But I feel that if people really knew about it, they’d be getting a free book — paid for with the $25 credit — and they might buy another one,” he said. “That’s an incentive that would work on me.”<\/p>\n
Matthew Slotkin, a Manhattan resident looking at Crawford’s window display, said he wasn’t aware of the campaign. But the 33-year-old Slotkin said he prefers independent stores and would support any efforts to help them.<\/p>\n
“I like small stores,” he said. “It offers you more personal service.”<\/p>\n
In announcing the program, Chenault said he didn’t expect it to catch on as a trend overnight.<\/p>\n
“It’s not a flash in the pan,” he said, adding that American Express was “committed to this effort for years to come.”<\/p>\n
More companies should commit to this because it is a win win. Obviously Amex is looking to promote themselves in this effort but it does benefit small business owners as well!<\/em><\/strong> NEW YORK (AP) — New York is trying to help independent merchants by pioneering Small Business Saturday on the weekend<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1213,"featured_media":72448,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"magazineBlocksPostFeaturedMedia":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg","medium":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","medium_large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","1536x1536":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","2048x2048":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-highlighted-post":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-featured-post-medium":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-featured-post-small":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x90.jpg","colormag-featured-image":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-default-news":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg","colormag-featured-image-large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-block-extra-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-small-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-medium-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg"},"magazineBlocksPostAuthor":{"name":"Joshua","avatar":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/62ee23f8f40307578d1f284ecd823d77f32da8ea35541e7dbdafeb5da1a4e877?s=96&d=mm&r=g"},"magazineBlocksPostCommentsNumber":"0","magazineBlocksPostExcerpt":"NEW YORK (AP) — New York is trying to help independent merchants by pioneering Small Business Saturday on the weekend","magazineBlocksPostCategories":[],"magazineBlocksPostViewCount":137,"magazineBlocksPostReadTime":2,"magazine_blocks_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg",113,170,false],"medium":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg",113,170,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg",113,150,true]},"magazine_blocks_author":{"display_name":"Joshua","author_link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?author=1213"},"magazine_blocks_comment":0,"magazine_blocks_author_image":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/62ee23f8f40307578d1f284ecd823d77f32da8ea35541e7dbdafeb5da1a4e877?s=96&d=mm&r=g","magazine_blocks_category":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1213"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6766"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6766\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/72448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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