I went for a three-mile walk Friday, which isn't much except
that my left glut muscle still feels like it's covering a broken hip
socket. (Old age blows.) The purpose of this walk was three-fold: exercise off some of Thanksgiving dinner from
the day before; enjoy one of the last nice days before winter gets us fully
into its grip; and check out the sales for Small Business Saturday.
I am not a Black Friday shopper. I plan for months in advance what to do to
completely avoid Black Friday crowds. I
won't even drive anywhere near a mall nor a department store. This determination meant that no grocery
shopping could be done on Friday because my main store is right next to Kohl's,
so I am sipping the last of the milk like it's fine scotch. (Okay, so I could've walked to the store down
the street and bought milk if I really wanted to, but that wasn't the purpose
of the walk. I did not write: reason #4
= buy milk, did I? I didn't think so.)
Small Business Saturday, for those who do not follow the
news, is a holiday after Black Friday where locally-owned shops compete for
holiday consumer business. I fully
expected to do some shopping Saturday, today, after my car was serviced. But what I saw yesterday was that all the
shops had their sales on Friday, Black Friday.
Not Small Business Saturday.
I mean, really. What
the freak.
Perhaps they will have sales on both days, but that's not
what the signs in the store windows claimed.
So here's my major gripe for today:
If small businesses truly want our business and want (and expect)
consumers to support such events as Small Business Saturday, shouldn't they
perhaps cater toward that end? Why
should consumers make an effort (other than major guilt over greedy conglomerates)
to support small businesses if the businesses are not going to make an effort
to embrace consumers?
We are losing the locally-owned shops at a rate that rivals
the number of times freaks are photographed shopping at Wal-Mart. If truth be told, I'm willing to bet that the
rate of small businesses declining and failing is directly correlative to the
increase in weirdos posted on peopleofwalmart.com. Yes, I expect small business owners and their
clerks to fawn over me, to wine and dine me, to trip over themselves trying to
capture and maintain my loyal business.
If that's too much work for them, I hope their businesses do fail, and rightfully so.
If I wanted to be ignored or mistreated, I'd go out on Black
Friday with the masses and suffer the agida associated with gross consumerism. I prefer the personal touch, and I'm willing
to pay for it. It's too bad so many
people feel simply unlocking their door and hanging up an "open" sign
is good enough.
I walked three miles today looking for signs of hope and
prosperous invitations for Small Business Saturday. If it's not equally important to shop owners,
believe me, broken hip socket or not, I'm just going to keep on walking.
