With Thanksgiving coming up, it seems like all we hear about is Black Friday and Cyber Monday. It’s hard to deny that these days dominate our culture because every year we are bombarded with ads and sales in the weeks leading up to this commercial weekend. Small Business Saturday is one of the lesser-known holidays that deserves more of the hype centered around the weekend of retail. Supporting Small Business Saturday is beneficial for many people in several ways.

Small Business Saturday brings light to the businesses that are overpowered by big stores on Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

In the weeks leading up to the retail weekend following Thanksgiving, the media are almost completely dominated by big stores advertising the deals they are offering the weekend of Black Friday. With all of the hype surrounding these stores, it is easy for people to forget about the smaller shops. People get so distracted by the shocking deals that they forget to look in other places for these products. For all we know, smaller businesses could sell similar products for similar or cheaper prices.

You usually know more about the businesses when they are smaller and locally owned.

When you shop at locally owned stores, you have the opportunity to get to know the owners and find out more about why they chose to open this specific business. When you take the time to learn about the background of a business, you will learn if it’s something you truly support. Bigger stores are harder to understand and usually less willing to take the time to explain their values and business ethics. With the limited transparency of big businesses, you could be unintentionally supporting poor business practices involving human rights violations or environmental offenses.

The hype around Black Friday and Cyber Monday funnel money to the pocket of big corporations.

Many of the companies that succeed on Black Friday already have a lot of capital. These companies don’t need nearly as much money as they acquire through these retail holidays. Small businesses directly benefit from the sales they make. When you shop at small businesses, you can be assured that your purchases are helping the owners and workers. These businesses rely on your support and normally need all of the support they can get. To counter the hype of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, Small Business Saturday can help direct customers to the small businesses that benefit more from the money.

When you support local businesses, you keep money within your community.

Shopping at big companies just funnels money to the higher-ups of the company. The profits of the company are most likely not being spent in your community, if they are even being spent in your country. Keeping money in your community will improve the overall economy of your area.

Much of the shopping on Black Friday has expanded to Thanksgiving Day.

In the past few years, Black Friday has steadily become less about Friday, and more about Thursday night. With stores opening so early on Thanksgiving Day, many people who work at these stores don’t get to celebrate the holiday with their families. Shopping on Thursday night only encourages companies to continue opening earlier and earlier. When we support Small Business Saturday instead of the other retail holidays, we are showing big companies that we don’t approve of their stealing workers’ holidays.

Shopping is more genuine at smaller stores that emphasize sales less.

It seems as though when people shop on Black Friday, they just buy whatever is cheapest. For example, if someone is shopping on Black Friday and sees something that they would really like to buy for a present, but there is a different item that is on sale and cheaper, they might go with the second item just because it’s on sale. When small businesses don’t offer as many sales, people are more likely to buy something that they truly want to buy.