For the fourth year, independent businesses will tout the value and the virtue of shopping small, notably during the holiday season. Wilmington retailers will be among them, asking area residents to participate in Small Business Saturday this week.
 
“We’re doing a lot to promote Small Business Saturday,” Ed Wolverton, executive director of Wilmington Downtown Inc. (WDI), said Tuesday. “We were selected as a champion partner through American Express.”
 
The credit card company launched the program four years ago and provides marketing materials and promotional support for the campaign, Wolverton explained.
 
“They’ve developed a lot of collateral materials, such as signs, bags, welcome mats, banners and pins, and we’ve distributed these items around downtown to businesses who wanted them,” he said, adding that, while most area businesses promoting Small Business Saturday are in the downtown business district, his organization has made overtures to Castle Street stores as well.
 
“It’s a great program [American Express] has done,” said Joan Loch of Wilmington’s Downtown Business Alliance (DBA) and co-owner of the Crescent Moon, a gift shop at 24 N. Front St. “Over the past four years, they have spent so much money on national advertising, putting that mindset in front of people.”
 
Loch said that her organization, working with WDI and others, is trying to educate small business owners about the value of participating in the initiative and finding ways to draw shoppers into their stores, whether through special offers, sidewalk signage or other displays.
 
This year, American Express is offering an incentive to its cardholders, Loch said.
 
“Anybody with an American Express card can register on their website, and if they spend at least $10 per transaction for up to three transactions at businesses listed on the website, [the cardholder] will get up to $30 credit on their card,” she explained.
 
Of course, in order to participate, small businesses also must register on the website as well, Loch added.
 
Rather than simply promoting one Small Business Saturday during the holiday shopping season, Wolverton suggested that independent businesses think in terms of “small business Saturdays” – a longer-term concept.
 
WDI, in collaboration with DBA's Bring It! Downtown, has developed a holiday gift guide that highlights distinctive items available in Wilmington stores.
 
“This year we have both a print and an online version that features downtown businesses. Print copies are available at various locations; it’s also available online at our website,” Wolverton said.

DBA has also been promoting Decorate Downtown!, the third annual holiday decorating contest of its kind that encourages local businesses to adorn "stores, windows, boats and streets" with boughs of holly and/or other items that can help create "a festive holiday atmosphere," a contest ad says on DBA's website. Judging will be held Dec. 9.