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This column’s focus is highlighting local businesses that create made-in-Hawaii products. Today’s, however, invites you to consider spending money in support of as many of them as possible this holiday season, especially next weekend.
In addition to Black Friday and Cyber Monday, the holiday shopping season includes Small Business Saturday. It is always the day after Black Friday, so this year it will be Nov. 29.
Small Business Saturday was created by American Express in 2010 as a way to highlight small, local businesses and get customers, especially those with American Express credit cards, through their doors.
Since then "the single day has grown into a powerful movement," the website says.
The site allows you to search for small businesses and restaurants in and around Honolulu that are participating, and the search turns up 100 in each category. But there are duplications, and some companies listed are no longer in business.
The bigger picture, though, is that every small business can use local customer support.
"I’m all for … really supporting Hawaii and local business, and I’m behind that 150 percent, 250 percent," chuckled Honolulu artist Laura Mellow. "We should buy local and keep everyone employed."
Mellow’s former retail business is included on the AMEX site, but her downtown antiques and art gallery actually closed more than a year ago, she said.
She now is focused on her artwork created under the Makali‘i Arts banner, which is sold via her website and at gallery events including two now underway.
One is the Association of Hawaii Artists show at the Ho‘omaluhia Botanical Garden Visitor Center, through Nov. 29. Her work also is displayed and available at the Koa Art Gallery at 4303 Diamond Head Road, through Dec. 17.
Some 140 million shoppers are likely to take advantage of Thanksgiving weekend deals in stores and online, according to the National Retail Federation, which for the first time also asked survey participants about their intention to shop on Small Business Saturday.
Some 72.7 percent said they will or might specifically shop on that day.
"More than just a shopping day, Small Business Saturday highlights the millions of entrepreneurs and visionaries who help make retail the dynamic and community-focused industry that it is," said NRF President and CEO Matthew Shay in a statement.
Also this year, the U.S. Small Business Administration has teamed up with the National Restaurant Association on the related effort to boost dining out on Small Business Saturday.
The restaurant industry is the nation’s second-largest private-sector employer group and comprises a significant chunk of the national economy with an impact estimated at $1.8 trillion, according to the organizations. They calculate that each dollar spent in a restaurant generates an extra $2 in sales for other industries.
"Small Business Saturday has really grown far beyond and above a single corporate effort and has support from many sectors," said Jane Sawyer, Hawaii District director of the U.S. Small Business Administration.
"It now serves as a great focus on what small businesses offer in unique products and services and high levels of customer service in the early part of the holiday shopping season," she said, observing that Hawaii has "so many bright, creative, special small businesses that bring together or produce wonderful products (and) unique experiences."
More than 400 of those bright and creative small businesses will be in a single spot on Small Business Saturday, at the Islandwide Christmas Crafts and Food Expo. It actually gets underway at 4 p.m. on Black Friday and runs through Sunday. Admission is $5 for adults, $3 for military members or seniors 65 and older, and free for children 12 and younger.
The 28th annual event is staged by the Infante family, and "even the expo itself is a small business," said Esme Infante, daughter of founder Caroline Infante.
Vendors offering their wares and edibles run the gamut from handmade, specially designed travel tote bags by previous Buy Local subject Sky Dreams LLC, to local jewelry makers who are "very creative about using really innovative techniques with wire, semiprecious jewels" and other materials, to a longtime vendor selling kettle corn, Infante said.
"Susann Tita does the most whimsical, like, awesome things," she said, describing as an example from a previous expo, a life-size fabric sculpture of a pig, festooned "from head to toe with satin and silk pink roses."
"It’s, like, this investment in creativity and the artistic process. …It’s sort of that emotional artistic involvement that makes it fun to shop. … It’s a heart thing," she said.
Practically every vendor has a compelling story about why they started their businesses in the first place, Infante said, citing a single dad who needed a way to make a living while caring for his special-needs daughter.
"I wish that every shopper would know, when they shop at some place like the expo, that (while) it sounds kind of corny, they’re helping to make people’s dreams come true, making it possible for families to survive."
The goods and foods exhibitors create "come from that deep place, and I hope when the shoppers come, they know they have deep appreciation from the vendors," Infante said.
If you are a social media user, the hashtags are #SmallBizSat, #ShopSmall and #DineSmall. Happy shopping and eating!
ON THE NET:
» www.americanexpress.com/us/smallbusiness/shop-small
» www.sba.gov/smallbusinesssaturday
» www.makaliiarts.com
» www.islandwidecraftexpos.com
“Buy Local” runs on Aloha Fridays. Reach Erika Engle at 529-4303, erika@staradvertiser.com or on Twitter as @erikaengle.
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COURTESY LAURA MELLOW / MAKALI'I ARTS