Small Business Saturday is a UK wide initiative to encourage and support small businesses, especially in the drive towards Christmas. The idea is simple: for at least one day, shop entirely in small businesses. Hopefully this will result in more people continuing to use small businesses.
Small businesses contribute to local economies by bringing growth and innovation to the community in which the business is established. Small businesses also help stimulate economic growth by providing employment opportunities to people who may not be employable by larger corporations. Small businesses tend to attract talent who invent new products or implement new solutions for existing ideas. Larger businesses also often benefit from small businesses within the same local community, as many large corporations depend on small businesses for the completion of various business functions through outsourcing.
Commenting, Councillor Angus Forbes said:
"As a small business owner myself I really appreciate how hard it is to run a small business and I wanted to mark this day and help to promote it in my ward. Sadly, there is only one business registered in The Carse of Gowrie so I hope this will encourage many more to do so. More importantly, I hope that it will encourage more customers to support local small businesses rather than multinationals or online conglomerates.
"To do this, I have offered to work in The Tufted Duck Coffee Shop in Rait for a couple of hours to see what its like and help out Tim, the owner, for a bit.
"I feel very passionately about the contribution small businesses make to the economy."
Commenting, Tim Hardie, Owner of The Tufted Duck, said:
"I was delighted that Angus chose to spend a couple of hours here in The Tufted Duck on Small Business Saturday - if nothing else it was two hours of free labour! On a serious note, small businesses are the backbone of the UK economy and if we don’t support them then we will end up losing them. The only choices we would have then are large multinational or online retailers and that would be a great pity.
"The Carse of Gowrie has a number of small and rural businesses and what Angus is doing to promote them is a great idea; he is a regular customer so he knows us all well. "