It’s time again for our week in review. Here are the top stories important to your small business this week from the Small Business Trends editorial team.
Holidays
Small suppliers benefit from turkey shortage. Butterball, one of the nation’s largest producers, was short of big fresh birds this year. Not to worry though. Small farmers came to the rescue…and are smiling ear to ear.
Parking free in 42 communities on Small Business Saturday. Free parking is intended to further encourage customers to shop at local small businesses. Check out the post for a full list of participating communities.
Social Media
Twitter experimented briefly with new messaging program. For about a month, Twitter gave users the option of letting followers direct message them — even if they weren’t following them back at the time. It doesn’t seem the feature has made the cut.
LinkedIn rolls out Showcase Pages. They could be helpful if you happen to have a few niche products or services and need to target slightly different audiences with each. Here’s a basic overview.
Business Basics
Square eliminates flat rates. It’s a big blow to small businesses that use the pocket-sized credit card reader to avoid fees on a major credit card merchant account. The flat fee has been a major incentive for many small businesses to try the service.
Italy’s oldest family business seeks foreign customers. For centuries, the Pontifical Marinelli Foundry has served mainly one large local client, the Vatican. But tough economic times have forced this local bell maker to look at increasing exports.
Tech
Acer introduces two ultrabooks. These devices are new to the U.S. market and are aimed directly at business users. They have plenty of featured but don’t expect a bargain price.
Policy
Raising the minimum wage. The Affordable Care Act raised many concerns — now seemingly confirmed — in the small business community. But another policy on the horizon may be easily as dangerous. And that danger may not be only to the businesses themselves. Scott Shane has more.
Another Obamacare website delay. Yes, there’s another delay related to the Obamacare website. And this one affects small business with 50 employees or less. Small Business Trends CEO Anita Campbell has more.
Reading Photo via Shutterstock
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Aira Bongco
It’s nice to hear about how the holiday sales turned out. It seems that with more demand, more people are making more money in business. I am expecting that this will only turn better during the Christmas season.
Thanks for listing these as there are some that I’d missed out on, particularly about Square scrapping flat rates. It seems like yet another blow to small businesses (min wage, Obamacare site delay) when they could do with some support.
Aira Bongco
Small businesses are really having a tough time this year. It is like everything is aligning against them. I just hope that the number of businesses keep on growing for the sake of the economy.
Holiday season is here again with Christmas just around the corner, or shall I say in around 3 weeks times. Hopefully, more businesses will prosper during this time of more sales for gift giving and merry-making.
Aira Bongco
I think that this will be inevitable. With more people in the buying mood, I am pretty sure that businesses will take their share. It will still be a merry Christmas this year.