Pedestrians stroll along a downtown Evanston sidewalk. Photo: Eric Fredericks from Rancho Cordova, CA, United States / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0
Evanston retailers and restaurant owners were given a short checklist this week for Small Business Saturday on Nov. 28, with the first deadline arriving less than a week after the announcement.
The shopping day, which American Express started in 2010 and which falls on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, has become a fixture of the holiday season for independent merchants. In Evanston, the city’s economic development staff organized the local effort for 2015 around three steps.
Three steps, three deadlines
The first was optional and handled outside City Hall. Business owners and district groups could sign up on American Express’s Small Business Saturday website, which offers free printable signs, logos and other promotional material.
The second step went through the city. Merchants who planned sales, discounts or special events for the day, or for the wider holiday season, were asked to submit them through an online form by Nov. 16 so they could be publicized together. Any sale was left entirely to the discretion of the individual owner. The same form allowed businesses to sign up for three citywide activities: a storefront decorating contest, a scavenger hunt called “Liz at the Biz,” and the Warm Bevy Walk. Those who registered for a given event were to receive details by email.
The third step was a video. Economic development staff planned to visit merchants during the week of Nov. 9 and film short clips, 15 to 30 seconds each, for the city’s social media pages. The city had produced similar videos the previous year. Merchants who wanted to appear had to register by Nov. 9.
The filming schedule was split by district:
- Tuesday, Nov. 10: Chicago-Main-Dempster, Central Street and West Evanston
- Wednesday, Nov. 11: Central Street and Howard Street
- Thursday, Nov. 12: Downtown Evanston
- Friday, Nov. 13: Chicago-Main-Dempster, Central Street and West Evanston
- Tuesday, Nov. 17: Central Street and Howard Street
Why the districts matter
Evanston’s retail is spread across several separate commercial areas rather than one core. Downtown, centered on the Davis Street Metra and CTA stops, is the largest. Central Street, Dempster Street, Main Street and Howard Street each have their own cluster of shops and restaurants, and Chicago Avenue links the south end of town to Northwestern. Organizing by district, as the filming schedule did, reflects that layout, and it lets small groups of merchants promote themselves as a destination instead of a single address.
The scheduling also shows how compressed the timeline was. Video registration closed Nov. 9, the day filming began, and event registration closed a week later, only 12 days before the shopping day itself.
Small Business Saturday sits between Black Friday and Cyber Monday on the retail calendar. American Express has reported on the day’s results each year since it began, though the figures come from the company’s own surveys and should be read that way.
Details of the registration process and filming schedule come from the City of Evanston’s economic development announcement.
Daniel Okafor covers business, startups and the Innovators section for The Evanston Edge.
