Small Business Saturday is a marketing event that aims to encourage shoppers who might camp outside big-box stores for Black Friday sales to instead head to locally owned small businesses the following day.
Five years ago, American Express began touting the day with broadcast TV ads, and by setting up shopsmall.com, an online guide to participating retailers.
The idea seems to be a success, says Patrick Connor, Washington state director of the National Federation of Independent Businesses.
“Shoppers spent $5.7 million nationally at small businesses on Small Business Saturday last year, up 3.6 percent in one year,” Connor says.
Small Business Saturday is a marketing event that aims to encourage shoppers who might camp outside big-box stores for Black Friday sales to instead head to locally owned small businesses the following day.
Five years ago, American Express began touting the day with broadcast TV ads, and by setting up shopsmall.com, an online guide to participating retailers.
The idea seems to be a success, says Patrick Connor, Washington state director of the National Federation of Independent Businesses.
"Shoppers spent $5.7 million nationally at small businesses on Small Business Saturday last year, up 3.6 percent in one year," Connor says.
Vintage Books owner Becky Milner says Small Business Saturday gives her bookstore an opportunity to bring in new shoppers. Five published authors will work shifts as "volunteer booksellers," offering advice and talking to customers throughout the day.
The Greater Vancouver Chamber of Commerce is also getting in on the day, with more than 45 local businesses participating. Customers who shop at these outlets (www.vancouverusa.com/pages/SmallBusinessSaturday) by the end of business Saturday can enter a drawing for a $500 gift card.
-- Courtney Sherwood
Vintage Books owner Becky Milner says Small Business Saturday gives her bookstore an opportunity to bring in new shoppers. Five published authors will work shifts as “volunteer booksellers,” offering advice and talking to customers throughout the day.
The Greater Vancouver Chamber of Commerce is also getting in on the day, with more than 45 local businesses participating. Customers who shop at these outlets (www.vancouverusa.com/pages/SmallBusinessSaturday) by the end of business Saturday can enter a drawing for a $500 gift card.
— Courtney Sherwood
Nobody opens a business like hers hoping to get rich, the owner of one of Clark County’s last independent bookstores says with a laugh.
“Oh, heavens, no,” says Becky Milner, who founded Vintage Books in 1975. But Milner does hope to see a one-day spike in sales this weekend, when she and dozens of Clark County business owners — along with their peers across the country — open their doors for what they have dubbed Small Business Saturday. (See sidebar.)
And as Milner looks to the holiday season ahead, she says her business is doing better than many people might expect.
The book-selling industry has been turned on its head several times over the past two decades. Big box retailers Borders and Barnes & Noble built large networks of stores in the late 1990s and early 2000s, then saw sales drop fast as reading habits shifted to digital books. Borders went out of business, closing its only Clark County store in 2011, the same year Barnes & Noble closed a Jantzen Beach outlet. According to an analysis by Melville House Publishing, 1,000 bookstores went out of business between 2000 and 2007
But small bookstores that felt a pinch a few years ago are starting to see things pick up. Sales at independent bookstores have grown about 8 percent a year over the past three years, Slate magazine recently reported.
“Yes, a lot of people shop online and download books, and we also sell ebooks through our website,” Milner says. “But a lot of times, people like coming to the store, where they can browse a little, handle the books, talk about books with people. The industry is growing back.”
Milner has taken her business through ups and downs — and reinventions — several times over the course of its 39-year history.
“My husband is a big Chevrolet fanatic. We would go to automotive swap meets,” she says. “So at the beginning, I created and sold needlepoint kits and sold those kits through automotive magazines. I would create Corvettes, Thunderbirds and various car designs. When we introduced books, they were automotive books.”
After three years, the business was successful enough to move outside the house, to a building on Mill Plain Boulevard that no longer exists.
With a physical space, Milner decided to sell more than the crafts and automotive books that had fueled her catalog-based sales.
“We added antiques in the shop. My mom had some books, and she asked if we could sell them for her,” Milner says.
By 1984, the business, which had been operating under the name Vintage Emporium, was primarily a bookseller. That year, it moved to its current location, 6613 E. Mill Plain Boulevard.
While she laughs at the notion of getting rich as a bookseller, Milner says she gets enormous satisfaction from the work she’s done selling books for 30 years from her current store location. She notes she is able to pay herself a small salary and support a staff of nine.
“Nobody goes into this business hoping to make a good living, but it’s delightful work,” she says. “You do it because you have the passion, you love being part of the literary community, helping people find something to read.”
