Omaha business owners look forward to Small Business Saturday

OMAHA, Neb. (WOWT) - A big shopping weekend for businesses both big and small.

The Christmas shopping season officially gets underway with Black Friday deals, but tomorrow is all about the little guys.

Small business owners are hoping Small Business Saturday helps them rebound from a couple of lean years.

Wendy Pivonka says businesses like her Legend Comic Book Store might be small, but they are a big part of the community.

“They keep jobs local, they keep the money, the tax dollars local,” Wendy said. “A lot of small businesses especially try to utilize other small businesses in the area as much as they can obviously.”

Wendy says COVID hit all businesses pretty hard, but she believes small businesses took a much harder blow.

“I’ve seen a lot of businesses go under because of that. Not only during COVID but during the recovery, they just weren’t able to make it far enough. The supplements and everything were great but it didn’t help in the long run for a lot of small businesses especially.”

Now businesses big and small are dealing with inflation and wondering how much shoppers will spend this year.

“Everybody’s wallet is a little tighter so they’re not out spending as much. They’re more cautious about what they’re spending their money on not knowing what the cost of everything else is going to be in the future.”

But Wendy is still optimistic about the special small business day.

“Because this is kind of that first official season where everybody’s out and about and I think people are probably going to spend a little more because they weren’t able to get out and do that as much in the last few years. I don’t know. I hope.”

According to American Express, around $120 billion has been spent on Small Business Saturday from 2010 to 2019.

Copyright 2022 WOWT. All rights reserved.