With the holiday shopping season kicking into full gear in little more than a week, retailers of all sizes are prepping for the customer rush. While most shoppers think of the massive doorbuster deals offered at their favorite big-name retailer, smaller retailers have just as much, if not more, at stake in making the holidays a success.
The RTP team discusses what strategies small businesses can use during the holiday season, including taking advantage of Small Business Saturday on November 25, working with community organizations, leveraging social media and trumpeting their unique merchandise assortments.
Debbie Hauss, Editor-in-Chief: Although in a recent blog I lamented all the different special retail holiday days, I truly support efforts to help local businesses in any way we can. It is a boost for shoppers’ local economy, which should not be ignored. The challenge, though, is price and product availability. If Amazon and Alibaba are selling the same products at the same or lower prices, with free shipping and next-day delivery, it’s difficult for the average consumer to make the decision to make the trip to the local proprietor. Local retailers can win, though, because they possess the sought-after personal, one-on-one relationship with shoppers that the marketplaces just can’t achieve. In addition to offering a unique product selection and shopping experience, small, local businesses need to find new ways to strengthen the personal connection with customers.
Adam Blair, Executive Editor: Two enormous retailers that both begin with the letter “A” have taken very different approaches to helping smaller retailers. Alibaba, seeking to share the wealth of its incredibly successful Singles Day, enabled some 600,000 mom-and-pop stores and 30,000 rural retail centers in China to participate by sharing cloud-based technology solutions for merchandise, digital payment and inventory management. Compare that to Amazon, which has reportedly been lowering prices on products sold by its third-party marketplace sellers. Amazon makes up the price difference, so this seems like a win-win: the smaller retailers get more sales without sacrificing their margins. The problem is that apparently Amazon didn’t tell the sellers what it was doing — and such price changes could endanger their relationships with brands that demand items be sold at their minimum advertised price. Small businesses deserve to be treated like partners, not pawns.
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Marie Griffin, Managing Editor: Fortunately for the small enterprises in my town of Denville, N.J., local businesses get a lot of support throughout the year from the community. In addition to Small Business Saturday, there is a sidewalk sales day in the summer and a “Pink Witches Night Out” in the fall, where stores stay open late to help raise funds for local charities that fight cancer. Our small local businesses also get the spotlight during the Little League Opening Day parade, the Rotary Club Street Fair and the holiday tree lighting ceremony, all of which are held in the downtown area where most of these businesses are located. Denville is not in an out-of-the-way bucolic location, but I think that is one of the reasons why the citizens are fiercely devoted to maintaining businesses that give the town a unique flavor. It’s never going to be easy for small businesses to survive, but by banding together with one another and local organizations, they can carve out a unique niche and continue to compete successfully, even against the big chains and online behemoths.
Glenn Taylor, Senior Editor: Social media has been a major equalizer for retailers of all sizes, especially with the popularity of visual platforms such as Instagram and Snapchat. All it takes is one person to power these platforms and showcase the brand’s identity. Any analyst will tell you that differentiation is unbelievably important these days, and there’s no quicker (and cheaper) way to give shoppers a taste of how you stand out then by hyping yourself up via a post online. The growth of Small Business Saturday in recent years has certainly helped fuel these companies’ efforts, particularly with the hashtag #ShopSmall serving as a rallying call through social media. I think an effort like this actually does as much for the brands as any potential partnership with a larger brand could, in that shoppers can further identify with the idea of staying local.
Klaudia Tirico, Features Editor: I recently spent a few days in San Francisco and enjoyed walking into local shops for their unique, curated assortments of clothing, accessories and art. The “curated” aspect is something that will always drive me to local businesses because I know I will find something that retail giants won’t have, which means other people won’t have as much access to it. That’s a huge selling point for small businesses in my opinion, and these small retailers should be more vocal about it. This will help in creating a more loyal following and personal engagement with customers.
