Avoid Black Friday and Shop Small Instead

This year, I have decided not to hold Black Friday or Cyber Monday sales. For me, this has been a difficult decision having had a successful weekend in the past. Well, I say successful, the orders have come in, but when I dare to look at my profit margins a week later and find out if it was worth it, I have found I have more or less given some products away for free!

I know these annual sale events are great for some items, TVs, furniture and the like, and for huge shops with even bigger profit margins, it works very well, though even that's questionable sometimes when you look at the mark downs. 

However, when it comes to small businesses, and especially craft businesses when the mark ups are very low indeed, this just doesn't make sense. I try my best to keep my products' prices as low as possible for my customers all year round in the hope of encouraging them to take up this amazing craft, or to feed their pre-existing sewing addiction. This makes it harder for me to offer such huge discounts.

As you know if you subscribe to my Newsletter, I do offer introductory discounts on kits and other products nearly every week. I also hold a couple of sales through the year and often offer free postage weekends. I would much rather offer my customers discounts throughout the year, rather than trying to compete with large organisations' ridiculous discounts over this one weekend. 

So this year, instead of offering knock down prices my business is unable to sustain, I am going to celebrate Small Business Saturday on the weekend of December 7th - 8th. I feel this event does much more for us small businesses, encourages customers to think before they buy and to support small and local shops. We do live in uncertain times at the moment, and while the big firms are doing their 'thing', I believe it will be the small independent businesses that will shine through all this mess. 

While a growing amount of people are thinking more carefully about what to spend their money on, I encourage you to also think about where your money is going... to a huge multi-national who cares very little about their customer or the quality of their product? Or to a small company who carry their passion for their business all the way through to their customer service and final product. We care what about our customers think, what they feel and appreciate every penny spent with us!

So when you think about your gift shopping this year, please help support your local shops and those small online businesses who, while they can't compete with the big corporations of this world, can instead offer you a much more genuine, friendly and caring service while being thoughtful in what they offer to their customer. 

During this weekend, I would like to offer, a much more sustainable discount of £5.00 off when you spend £35 or more on the Sewmotion website. This offer will run over the weekend of Saturday 7th until midnight on Sunday 8th December. Simply use the code SmallBizSat at checkout.

There will also be some extra offers available to my Newsletter subscribers over the weekend - so why not click below to sign up now and not miss out.

Wishing you all a happy and creative week, linking up with Midweek Makers and Needle & Thread Thursday