Small Business Saturday started as a clever marketing campaign by credit card behemoth American Express.

Today, it brings in more than $17 billion for independent retailers and restaurants each year.

It also represents an opportunity for businesses to reward employees and support their communities each holiday season.

With the right tools, you can help your team turn corporate gifts into community goodwill that supports the corner coffee shop where your employees get a little work done, the downtown bookstore where they buy their kids’ summer reads, and the nail salon where their grandma has been chatting with the girls for decades.

Unlike traditional gift cards, Giftly isn’t tied to a specific retailer. That means employees can spend their gift at their favorite neighborhood spot, even if it doesn’t offer gift cards at all.

Why shopping local matters

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When your employees spend money at a locally-owned business, they’re keeping more of their money in their communities. They’re helping someone pay rent, hire staff, restock shelves.

According to economic policy experts, for every $100 spent at a local business, roughly $58 stays in the local economy. Only $33 of that same Benjamin spent at a chain stays local. And if you buy from an online mega-retailer like Amazon? You’re lucky if a few bucks stick around.

Local businesses are 2.6x more likely to hire local people, use local accountants, buy inventory from local suppliers. They are also more likely to put money back into schools, sidewalks, and local services, rather than shareholder dividends.

Locally-owned businesses also play a foundational role in building “social capital”. When you stop by the cafe where they know you by your name and your order, or the bookstore where the staff curates book picks, you’re participating in a social ecosystem. That ecosystem, research shows, makes communities more resilient, more engaged, and better at solving problems collectively.

These businesses also tend to inhabit the kinds of spaces that make neighborhoods livable and distinct. They occupy older storefronts in smaller buildings. Diverse architecture at a smaller scale encourages walkability, density, and daily interactions between neighbors. It invites people to linger, talk to each other, and feel like they belong.

There’s also the power of local ownership. Local businesses are run by your neighbors. That means your community retains control of how it evolves and changes over time, rather than having change thrust upon it by an international conglomerate looking to muscle its way in.

Barriers to local shopping

If local shopping is so great, why doesn’t everybody do it?

Sometimes, people simply aren’t aware of their local options. Even if they hear about Small Business Saturday and like the concept, it’s hard to break out of the default of what they know. And if what they know is Target and Amazon, then that’s where they’ll continue to shop.

Sometimes the wall shoppers run into is financial. Most small businesses can’t buy at the scale of Walmart, so prices are a bit higher. Even if the quality is also higher, the price tag can dissuade buyers. Small businesses often don’t have loyalty programs or offer gift cards that can defer some of those costs.

There’s also the time factor. Many local businesses don’t have polished e-commerce sites, and their hours may be limited compared to their chain counterparts. That makes it harder to stop in and shop.

How to promote Small Business Saturday in your workplace

The good news is you can help lower the barriers for your employees this Small Business Saturday.

Start by making local options more visible. You can create a local guide of community hot spots. This doesn’t have to be a heavy lift. It can be as simple as a shared Google Doc or Slack thread. Throw in fun categories like favorite tacos, hidden bookstores, best spot for curry. Encourage people to add their go-tos to the list.

There are also lots of marketing resources available online that help you share loudly and proudly that you support small businesses.

Invite employees to share photos or stories from the places they love to shop. You’ll get better participation if the ask isn’t just “shop local” but instead “show us that weird little record shop on Mulberry that refuses to alphabetize anything in its bins”.

The best thing you can do for local shops as a small business yourself, though, is to give your team a way to spend money where they actually want to spend it.

Giftly is (literally) built for shopping local

Giftly started with the simple idea that meaningful gifts shouldn’t be limited by the tools local businesses do or don’t have access to.

In 2010, Giftly founder Tim Bentley wanted to buy his mom dinner at her favorite neighborhood restaurant. The problem was they didn’t sell gift cards and he lived 1,000 miles away.

He couldn’t buy it online and he certainly couldn’t pop in and grab one. Today, someone in his shoes can send a Giftly. It’s basically cash, but warmer and fuzzier. It includes lots of ways to personalize the design and the message for the recipient so it still feels personal.

Traditional rewards and gifting platforms are built around national chains because they are easy to plug into a catalog. But that’s often not where people actually want to shop. It’s convenient, but not unique or personal.

A Giftly lets you send employees a reward that can be used anywhere, whether it’s a taco truck or a record store. If they love the place, they can spend their reward there.

It’s great for companies because you can send branded, personalized rewards to your whole organization, whether it’s a few people or a few thousand. Employees can then redeem their gift through a direct deposit or even PayPal.

Give a gift that hits close to home

An employee gift they can spend anywhere on Small Business Saturday lets them support the places that shape their daily lives. Most corporate gifting programs give something nice, but they miss the opportunity for that kind of personalized connection.

Giftly gives your team the freedom to spend their gift where it matters to them, instead of just wherever a platform’s specific vendor list allows. It also makes it easy for you to encourage local shopping in a way that feels natural.

Interested in putting together a Small Business Saturday campaign this November? Let’s talk.