Not the Weekend Steal – but a heartfelt message
All week our e-mail inbox has been pinging with news of sundry Black Friday beauty deals. (Not to mention Black Friday deals on practically every category under the sun.)
Our feeling is that Black Friday is all very well if you’ve intentionally been waiting for something you really want, and it’s come down in price… but that it’s all got a bit OTT.
So, we are both huge advocates of shopping locally and supporting smaller businesses – even though we’re a website! We’ve been proud to champion beauty start-ups all our careers – gosh, we remember when people like Bobbi Brown and This Works and Laura Mercier and even ELEMIS were start-ups! We were there with the trumpets, right from the get-go, spreading the word.
So, instead of showcasing a Weekend Steal this week, or giving airtime to some ‘amazing’ Black Friday deal, we thought we’d remind ourselves of the impact of shopping from a small business. (Not least, as the slogan sometimes goes, that ‘When you buy from a small business, a real person does a happy dance…’)
Holly Tucker is the great champion of small businesses, through her website Holly & Co. She runs a terrific campaign each year called Colour Friday – the polar opposite of Black Friday – to highlight the importance of buying from small businesses. Here are just some of the facts she shares (and there’s more, on the Colour Friday page on her website, here).
• If you spend £10 at a local independent shop, it can result in up to £50 more being recirculated in the local economy than if £10 was spent at a chain (because business owners are more likely to spend their money locally).
• Small businesses play a crucial role in increasing UK employment rates (employing around 16.9 million people).
• They contribute £2.18 trillion to the UK economy (around a quarter of our GDP)?
‘And yet the UK is expected to spend £3.9 billion on Black Friday this year, while a million small businesses fear closure. By opting to shop at small local businesses, you can contribute towards building a more vibrant and diverse economy that better reflects the needs and values of the whole community?,’ says Holly.
You’ve probably got lovely local stores selling hand-made beauty products, or goods from kitchen table start-ups. Gosh, there are plenty of up-and-coming brands online, too – in the past few weeks we’ve mentioned Wild England, Bramley, C.Atherley, skin:genius, Bienaimé… to name but a few. So we’re proud to be doing our bit. (There are also gorgeous pampering brands on Holly & Co.’s website, here.)
But what we’d really, really love you to do today is remember the smaller businesses, while being bombarded with deals from the big ones. (Who don’t really need the extra help.)
Happy Colour Friday!
