00:00 Speaker A
For businesses along Main Street that that employ nearly half of the US workforce, the holiday shopping season can be make or break for their bottom line. Joining me now is Elizabeth Gore, co-founder and president of Hello Alice and host of the Yahoo Finance podcast, The Big Idea to discuss the importance of Small Business Saturday. Great to see you, Elizabeth.
00:19 Elizabeth Gore
Howdy, Happy Thanksgiving.
00:21 Speaker A
Happy Thanksgiving to you. So, um, Small Business Saturday has been around for a while now. How much of a driver is it for traffic into these stores? I mean, how successful has it been in sort of raising awareness and getting people to shop small?
00:43 Elizabeth Gore
Oh, it’s enormous. I mean, the fact that you’re talking about it of the 106 86 million shoppers that are going to hit the streets between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday are vast majority of those hopefully are going to walk into stores that they love on the corner. Main Street really thrives during small business Saturday and as you said, small business sentiment has been unusually low lately with the high cost of capital and waiting on the tariff argument from Scotus. But you’re also seeing that they are the most trusted group in America, which means folks are walking in, buying those toys, those all those things that you love for their families. So it’s a critical time for small business.
01:21 Speaker A
So when so much is riding on the line here for many of these small businesses, Elizabeth, what do they need to do to make sure that they’re capitalizing on it, that they’re getting people in the door, um, and that, you know, they can remain in the black this holiday season.
01:35 Elizabeth Gore
Well, I love the campaigns you see. I mean, Good Foods family, they are a cranberry company that’s trying to beat out Ocean Street spray for the first time. So it’s going viral right now. You see superstars like Kristen Bell, all her shopping right now is going not just with small businesses, but she’s donating all proceeds to Hello Alice’s grants with small businesses. They’re also utilizing new software and AI as you said before. PayPal’s new program, buy now pay later is a big one for small business owners to allow shoppers to walk in, make that purchase without worry. So, I also am really excited to see groups like Amazon promoting small business. So you can go on and click just the small business sellers button. So even if you’re not leaving your house, you’re still supporting small business.
02:11 Speaker A
Um and that’s interesting too because I think now in some ways it’s harder than ever to find those small businesses and in some ways it’s easier than ever, right? In other words, you know, we’ve sort of seen the franchise vacation of a lot of main streets across the country. But as you say, that you’re also seeing an increase in accessibility to these small businesses online. So if I’m a shopper, like what is the best ways to find these small businesses if I want to, if I want to patronize them?
02:40 Elizabeth Gore
Oh, I’m so excited about as y’all were saying earlier, AI, just jump into your chat GPT and if you want to do it from a geographic standpoint, if you’re in LA and you’re looking for pretzels, you’ll probably find Shapy’s pretzels. If you are in New York and you’re saying what are the best baked goods? Put that in there in New York City’s and baked by Melissa’s going to pop up. So it actually should be easier than ever. Also, most small businesses are also shipping, which is an exciting time. It’s getting easier particularly with their own stores and things like Shopify for them to ship out. So you should be able and even now you can say, hey, I want small business and I want veteran owned. So you can do a double search for your community and give back to those who are employing your friends, your neighbors, your cousins, and everyone you love.
03:13 Speaker A
And how how are these small businesses, um navigating the tariff and inventory situation right now, right? Are and making sure they’ve got enough inventory in their stores heading into this holiday weekend.
03:22 Elizabeth Gore
You know, since COVID, this is the toughest time for supply chain. Uh part of that is still coming out of the tariff’s issue. As I said earlier, folks are waiting on that Scotus argument to see if tariffs are going to stand. It depends on where they’ve diversified, where they’re getting their items. Uh if they’re in one country and those tariffs were high, they’ve had to wait. Now, some small businesses have stocked up and tried to keep things local so they’re not having to pay those high prices, but ultimately it will be passed on to the consumer and I just ask for consumer patients because your bakery does need to pass along that cost to stay alive.
03:54 Speaker A
Um, and Elizabeth, um, of course, it’s not just about shopping for gifts for the holiday. Um, Thanksgiving is tomorrow. You mentioned that cranberry company. And so how should people thinking about for Thanksgiving itself, maybe shopping small. I mean, most people, for example, buy their groceries in big stores, but not everybody, you know, you can go to your local butcher, et cetera. So how can people sort of strategize to help small businesses and to shop local, you know, at that time as well?
04:21 Elizabeth Gore
Yeah, well, you know, the vast majority actually of food production and groceries are still small and grocers in this country. So you can really make an effort to do that. As I said earlier, you can actually go online still as of right now and buy products and have them shipped to your house by small business companies. That is a way to do it. Even go down and think about the corner store and buying your some of your wears, some of your plates from that local store. This is what you can do. Those of you who are like me and don’t cook a lot, if you want a local caterer, think about that. You’re really going to benefit those small businesses.
04:54 Speaker A
Elizabeth, great to see you. Have a great holiday.
04:58 Elizabeth Gore
Happy Thanksgiving.
04:59 Speaker A
Thank you. And be sure of course to listen to Elizabeth each week on the Yahoo Finance podcast, The Big Idea on Thursdays at 3:00 p.m. Eastern where she talks about all of these issues facing small businesses.
