Black Friday 2012 Deals: Local Stores Offer Discounts for "Small Business Saturday"

The holiday shopping season kicks off this week with Black Friday deals at retail and electronics stores across the country. Shoppers are already lining up outside some stores to await special discounts that begin as early as Thanksgiving night.

But most of the stores that can afford to staff and manage midnight openings on a holiday are big-box, corporate chains. What about small, local shops?

Many of them are struggling to compete. The large retailers are often ensconced inside indoor malls. The entire complex opens its doors and becomes a destination for shoppers eager for deals on gifts.

Waiting in line at say, Macy's, makes that shopper more likely to hit up another store in the same mall.

That diverts traffic from smaller, independent stores in stand-alone buildings or less-crowded strip malls. By the time a Black Friday shopper has hit all the chain retail stores, there may not be anything left for them to buy from a local retailer (or enough funds even if they wanted to).

Mall-based small retailers suffer, too. With shoppers showing up in the middle of the night, small retailers risk losing a huge chunk of sales if they're not open. Many stores make 50 percent of their annual sales between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

But small stores don't always have enough employees or resources to open as early as the big retailers, or to stay open as long or as late.

In response several initiatives aim to redirect some of the purchasing frenzy toward local businesses. A "shift-three" pledge drive gathers signatures from shoppers who pledge to shift three of the purchases they were planning to make at a chain store to a local, independent business.

In 2010, American Express started Small Business Saturday, a counterpoint to Black Friday and Cyber Monday that steers buyers toward stores owned and operated in their own community.

Participating stores offer discounts and gift certificates on a day that is often a lull between events for large retail stores.

While a locally-owned store may not have the very lowest prices or doorbuster sales on Black Friday, they're a part of the community every other day of the year, employing neighbors and reinvesting profits back into the area.