Shop Small Saturday Adventures

It seemed a simple task, really. Spend $50 or thereabouts at a couple of local small businesses on November 24 — Small Business Saturday. I’d won a $25 American Express gift card for the purpose from FedEx, and I’d registered my own American Express card as well, so that I could receive the $25 reward credit that they offer for supporting small, local businesses on the day after Black Friday.

I’d checked my list of “stuff to get” both for home and on family members’ Christmas lists, and I’d checked the stores I thought would be eligible on the Shop Small website‘s map of participating stores.
I was disappointed that some of the ones I’d especially hoped to find didn’t show up on the map, but happily surprised to find others that I hadn’t expected.

My first stop was my favourite little liquor store. I wanted a bottle of red and a bottle of white for making my favourite lamb stew and the kids’ favourite chicken dish.  As I was checking out, I mentioned to the clerk that I was there because it was Small Business Saturday and I was happy to see that they were participating in the promotion. He looked confused, and said that he didn’t even know what that was.

I was a little worried as I walked back to the car. According to the Shop Small website, you get the $25 credit on your card once the merchant reports to AmEx that you made a qualifying purchase on the appropriate shopping day. But I figured I still had three or four more stops I’d planned to make, so if that one didn’t pan out, I had backup.

My next stop was to one of my favourite little used book places. While I was actually looking for a couple of specific things, I always love to browse through this shop. While I often come up empty-handed, I occasionally find a treasure. Today, I found five! A couple of first editions by one of my favourite authors (John Hersey), a couple of Dame Frevisse mysteries by Margaret Frazer, and a Chaim Potok that I didn’t have in my collection. Along with a couple of fun little things that looked interesting.  Again, while chatting with the clerk, I mentioned that I didn’t usually venture out on Thanksgiving weekend, but that since I would get $25 as a gift from AmEx for supporting small business, and since I’d seen that they were participating, I’d made a special trip. The clerk says, “That’s really nice that you get $25 … but do you have to use your American Express card? Because we don’t take AmEx here.” (Yes, I bought the books anyway.)

As it was now suppertime and one of my favourite little local sushi places was both on the way home and on the Shop Small map, I stopped off for dinner. Everything went smoothly there, so I feel fairly certain that that transaction, at least, will earn me the $25 credit on my AmEx.

But I still had the FedEx card to spend. I stopped by the house to drop off the books and the wine, and I checked the Shop Small map again to see if my second-favourite local independent bookseller was on it. (I’d already checked for my first, which wasn’t there. Big disappointment.)

I was glad to find that the second-favourite shop was participating and  headed out again to see if I could pick up some Christmas list items and a couple of things on my list. Alas, only one of the things I wanted was in. But I did find the sequel to a favourite humour compilation (I Judge You When You Use Poor Grammar — the sequel is More Badder Grammar! ), so I picked that up. The kids and I will have fun with it; I think they’ve read the first one three or four times, laughing hilariously all the way through every time.

So it was a strangely frustrating but also satisfying Shop Small day for me. You see, while I do appreciate what the big retailers can do for the community (and my community benefits immensely from several of them), I also have great affection and loyalty for the local businesses. And I’ve watched far too many of them close their doors in recent years.  I found myself remembering two of them, Mantia’s and Crema, while I was out today, and wishing that I could spend some money with them today. I know that the little I did today probably isn’t a drop in the bucket for the shops I went to. But I feel like I did something useful today. And I did get a nice dinner, a few good books, and a couple of nice bottles of wine out of it.

Tags: books, errands, Family Life, shopping, Small Business Saturday, True Stories, wine