Thursday, November 26 will be Thanksgiving in the US. The Christmas selling season this year will have 28 days and we anticipate will be anything but, "business as usual".

Several of the chain stores have already announced they will not have their traditional Black Friday promotions because of the concern for not being able to handle the usual crowds.

We took a road trip yesterday to research for the newsletter. We visited an upscale mall in the area and found there was not the usual consistency among mall merchants in how they did business. The hours they were open varied. Some had their doors closed with an over abundance of signage to explain what you were to do in coming into their store. Stores with multiple entrances had all but one mall entrance closed off. Several had an employee at the entrance with customers standing in line waiting for their turn to enter the store.

This demonstrates a lot of disruption in what customers are going to experience with most of retail. This could play to your advantage during the Christmas season. Now is the time for you to plan how you are going to present your business.

Your being able to be an experience that more closely resembles a sense of normalcy can work to your advantage. However, we think the timing of your Christmas selling season needs to be addressed. Let us share several ideas.

What if you were to stretch the holiday season earlier into November? This could help solve the issue of the traditional crowd over the Thanksgiving weekend.

You could create a calendar showing customers there will be new specials being introduced every day. These are just a couple of ideas.

The bottom line of this is our suggestion you do not try to have "business as usual" for this holiday season. You will not be going against the traditional advertising of your competition and with just over two months before the season begins, you should be deciding how your business is going to participate.

Over the last two months we have been discussing the associations our businesses belong to. This series started with an article about the growth of independent bookstores and how their association has provided insight and guidance. As we would expect, with Amazon beginning in 1994 as an online bookstore the independent bookstore industry took a beating with many stores closing.

In recent years their industry has been rebounding and the association has provided a lot of assistance and guidance.

As the pandemic began last March, we watched closely to see what the various trade associations did to provide guidance and assistance to their members. We also watched the many manufacturers and wholesalers to see what they would do to help the many small businesses that are their customers.

After the August Small Business News I heard from a retailer I have known for 15 years. She is a very sharp and creative retailer. Her comments were that there had been no assistance or information from her primary manufacturer or the national trade association. As always, a conversation with her is always very fulfilling because of her knowledge, intelligence and creativity.

As we visited there were two items that came to mind. The first is a trade association I do want to recognize that has been doing an excellent job of communicating and providing information to their members. That group is the Board Retailers Association - the retailers selling surf boards, skate boards, etc. They have a president who is a very good retailer and this person makes a point to provide all the help they can to the membership.

The second is an experience I had almost 30 years ago. I sat on the board of our trade association. I flew to Boston for a meeting one weekend. As we met, each board member was presented with the usual packet of material to be discussed. In the packet was a letter the association had received from a member.

This letter became the focal point of an article I wrote and I want to share it with you. The Letter

As I share the article, it substantiates two points; the situation with associations we are discussing is not new. Looking back, I think about my disappointment with our association as the management was content with simply sharing the letter with the board members.

Associations CAN provide multiple valuable services to your business. Being with other businesses within the association can provide you with ideas that are independent of your primary vendors. Over the past 40 years we have observed wholesalers and manufacturers working to increase how a local business is more dependent on that vendor.

Personally I question how your increasing your dependency on that vendor can be healthy for your independent business. I believe the gathering of independent thoughts is crucial for an independent business. An association must be more than an organization through which its members get a discount on shipping, insurance, cell phone service and other business essential products and services. While an association can receive substantial revenue by offering the endorsement of these companies, your business cannot save its way to profitability.

When there are challenges such as the pandemic and the great recession, your business needs ideas and assistance outside of a manufacturer or wholesaler who is saying, "just do as we tell you".

My concern for the lack of action by associations over the past six months is valid. During the great recession we know of associations that lost 40% of their members. Money was tight for many businesses and when it came time to pay bills it was understandable that the association went unpaid because the association did not do anything to help the business deal with the recession. It appears that in 2020 most associations have forgotten what occurred 13 years ago.

The closing thought is the association is your association. If you want it to be successful and you see the opportunities for the association to be of help to your business, it is up to you. I can assure you there is a need for the association.