Today is Small Business Saturday, and a group of stores in Downtown Plymouth is offering an incentive for residents to shop local. They’re teaming up for a Shop Small Selfie Contest.
Brian VanDuyne of Fernbaugh’s Jewelers helped put the contest together. He hopes it will bring a lot of people downtown, “They can enter up to 15 times; there’s actually 15 stores. To enter, they need to take a picture from inside each business and then just hashtag “plyselfie” on their photo, and then we’re going to randomly pick from one of those photos that day only, and we’re up to $465 in gift certificates to be given away to one person.”
He says there’s also another prize up for grabs, “The second prize is $100 cash donated by Discover Plymouth, and the businesses are actually going to pick the most creative selfie.”
Small Business Saturday was started five years ago by American Express. VanDuyne says, since then, it’s become a big shopping day for stores like his, noting that according to American Express, $14.3 billion was spent at small businesses nationwide during last year’s event. Because of this, he’s dedicating more of his business’s advertising budget to it.
He says it’s important to support small businesses, “When you’re shopping in a local business, most of the small businesses are family owned, so they live in the community, they pay taxes in the community. So the money you spend in a small business is more likely to stay in that community.”
He says if shoppers head to Downtown Plymouth, they’ll find there are plenty of stores to choose from, “There’s a pretty good number. We’ve got 15 businesses within about a two-block area. It’s like shopping the oldest mall.”
The Shop Small Selfie Contest takes place from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. For more information and a list of participating stores, visit the Shop Small Selfie Contest Facebook event page.
