We are launching "Black Friday" this week, which is the day in the calendar year. Retailers across the country will sell a large amount of goods to Christmas shoppers, so that their operations throughout the year will stop losing money and turn into profit.

This is really not the busiest shopping day of the year-these days, just a few days before Christmas, when all of us wake up and realize that we have almost no time. But "Black Friday", whose traditional Turkish access control sales now start a few weeks earlier than the actual date, is such a great marketing brand that Internet merchants seized the opportunity to start the next working week as "Cyber ​​Monday." "It worked: All of us that day, although we should be working hard at our desks, we used office hours to go to this or that dot-com and load it.

Sandwiched in the middle of all this is another genius marketing: Saturday small businesses.

Credit card company American Express owns the "Small Business Friday" brand, and it is commendable that it invests heavily in participating companies' promotions and public awareness activities every year. Good for them.

What's really shocking here is that American Express is usually the most expensive card for small businesses to accept payments from customers. Every time we use our credit card, the merchant pays his or her credit card processor a certain percentage of the sales, and the rate varies depending on the card presented. American Express, a great product, is there and is the most expensive for businesses.

Perhaps the company proposed it to alleviate some of the bad karma that they might worry about accepting the high price of the card. But, of course, the company wins awards on its Big Brand Day every year because companies are encouraged to post American Express-approved logos anywhere. If we take out our American Express cards in small businesses on Saturday, we can provide beautiful Transactions.

We don’t want to be too cynical here because, as an independent retailer told us, “we will do our best to promote it.”

Yes. Any publicity aimed at small businesses is a good thing, especially when big brand merchants engage in low-price price wars for our holiday shopping revenue. However, we worry that if only one day is set aside to patronize small businesses, too many shoppers will think, “I did my duty. I bought something from an independent retailer on Saturday in a small business. I Will check that box, brag on my social media, and buy all my other gifts from a national brand."

We want shoppers in Otsego County and elsewhere to remember that every day of the calendar year is at your independent business, your Main Street restaurant, wineries and farm stalls near you, and, yes, your hometown newspaper The right day for shopping. As readers know, this page is an unabashed supporter of every local business in our area. We don’t need big companies to set aside a Saturday to remind us of the importance of local new and old businesses. "

Small businesses will not survive because we set aside a day on the calendar for shopping or eating there.

They will not be able to survive because we have discarded feel-good clichés such as "small businesses are the backbone of our community."

Of course, these are all good things, but the best way to keep our small business open and prosperous-the only way is for us to take out our wallets and spend money throughout the year.

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