{"id":43187,"date":"2019-11-18T11:30:00","date_gmt":"2019-11-18T19:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/opinion\/small-businesses-are-original-experiential-shopping-experience\/"},"modified":"2019-11-18T15:45:10","modified_gmt":"2019-11-18T23:45:10","slug":"small-businesses-are-original-experiential-shopping-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/opinion\/small-businesses-are-original-experiential-shopping-experience\/","title":{"rendered":"Small businesses are original ‘experiential shopping’ experience"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jeremy Field, <\/strong>regional administrator, PNW, U.S. Small Business Administration<\/em><\/p>\n

As online shopping has steadily grown during the past decade, brick and mortar retail businesses have been looking at new ways to address this shift in consumer behavior.<\/p>\n

In an attempt to convert some of those “clicks” back to “bricks,” experiential shopping has become the latest trend and marketing technique for traditional retailers. Experiential shopping can take many shapes – a focus on consumer engagement over sales, creating an experience to share with others, or offering other services beyond the products sold, to name a few.<\/p>\n

But for most small, mom-and-pop businesses, this is simply business as usual, and has been for generations. Small businesses are the original experiential shopping experience. There are no new marketing techniques at play – just an authentic, local and personal shopping experience.<\/p>\n

That is why the #ShopSmall movement is so important. It reminds us of the importance of spending our dollars in the establishments that power our economy, benefit our communities, and enrich our lives.<\/p>\n

Small Business Saturday celebrates its 10th anniversary on Nov. 30. The movement is set to build on a decade of success and rally even more communities to come together in support of small businesses.<\/p>\n

Last year, a record estimated $17.8 billion was spent on Small Business Saturday at independent retailers and restaurants, momentum I urge you to continue by shopping small this holiday season.<\/p>\n

Supporting Small Business Saturday doesn’t have to be a choice between “clicks” or “bricks” either. More and more small businesses are bringing their local and personal touch to the convenience of online shopping. In fact, 41% of consumers who reported participating in Small Business Saturday last year did so by shopping small online.<\/p>\n

There are 609,000 small businesses in Washington state; and, more than half of the Washington workforce either is employed by a small business or owns a small business. Plus, two out of three net new jobs are created by small businesses.<\/p>\n

Spending your dollars with a small business this holiday season not only grows the economy, it typically comes with a great story to share: the artist who handcrafted a piece of jewelry, the father and son who decided to take their BBQ rub recipes to market, the corporate professional who got burned out and decided to pursue a passion for pet care … they are the people who naturally create experiential shopping for consumers simply by being themselves.<\/p>\n

This year, the SBA Seattle District – which serves Washington and northern Idaho – will participate in Small Business Saturday by doing a Main Street business tour with the mayor in Port Townsend, connecting businesses with holiday marketing resources, and getting the word out to #ShopSmall. I invite you to join us in participating in Small Business Saturday and create a memorable experiential shopping experience for you and your loved ones this year.<\/p>\n

Jeremy Field is the Regional Administrator for the U.S. Small Business Administration<\/a> (SBA) Pacific Northwest Region which serves Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Alaska. The SBA empowers entrepreneurs and small businesses with resources to start, grow, expand or recover.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Jeremy Field, <\/strong>regional administrator, PNW, U.S. Small Business Administration<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":43195,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-43187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43187"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43187\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43187"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=43187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}