Many Austin shoppers are ditching big-box retailers and e-commerce websites for locally owned shops. In fact, Austin ranks first in a new 40-city survey that gauged consumers\u2019 support of small businesses.<\/p>\n
The survey<\/a>, commissioned by small-business lender Nav, found Austin shoppers are quite loyal to local small businesses:<\/p>\n Two-thirds plan to shop at small businesses on Small Business Saturday<\/a>, which this year falls on November 30. It comes the day after Black Friday, a shopping extravaganza typically associated with major retailers.Local residents spent an average of $627 at Austin-area small businesses last year. That\u2019s the highest dollar total among the 40 cities in the survey.53 percent shop at local small businesses at least once a week. That\u2019s the highest percentage among the 40 cities.Nearly one-third shop only at local small businesses rather than online.<\/p>\n The most popular small-business category for Austin shoppers: coffee shops and bakeries. (Here’s a new combo of the two<\/a> that just opened in November.)<\/p>\n Of course, small-business shopping in Austin isn\u2019t limited to coffee and baked goods. For example, the Texas Craft Brewers Guild is celebrating this year\u2019s Small Business Saturday through the sale of limited-edition beer glasses<\/a> at 90 or so small craft breweries and beer retailers across Texas. Savannah Garza<\/a>, an alum of St. Edward\u2019s University in Austin, designed the glasses.<\/p>\n An accurate count of the number of small-business retailers in the Austin metro area isn\u2019t available. But we do know that Austin is home to roughly 42,000 small businesses<\/a>. That\u2019s according to Anthony Segura, interim director of Austin Economic Development, which operates a division dedicated to small businesses. The 42,000 figure works out to nearly 170 small businesses per 100,000 residents in the region.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen Austinites choose to shop local, they\u2019re investing in the people, ideas, and creativity that make our city exceptional and business-friendly,\u201d Segura said in a press release about Small Business Saturday.<\/p>\n Over the years, Austin has appeared at or near the top of various indicators for small-business strength. For instance, a 2024 study by small-business lender OnDeck put the Austin area at No. 4 for small-business growth<\/a> among large metros from 2020 to 2021 (5.66 percent). Also in 2024, the CoworkingCafe platform released a list of the best U.S. cities for small businesses<\/a>, with Austin claiming fifth place.<\/p>\n CoworkingCafe says Austin\u2019s highly educated workforce, low unemployment rate and high level of economic activity make it \u201can ideal place for both startups and small businesses to thrive.\u201d<\/p>\n Elsewhere in Texas, the Nav survey ranked:<\/p>\n San Antonio 22nd overall and 33rd for average spending at small businesses ($413.64).Houston 26th overall and 34th for spending at small businesses ($400.94).Dallas 27th overall and 36th for average spending at small businesses ($394.64).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Many Austin shoppers are ditching big-box retailers and e-commerce websites for locally owned shops. In fact, Austin ranks…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62938,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,4552,3330,918,919,4553,325],"class_list":{"0":"post-62937","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-austin","8":"tag-austin","9":"tag-austin-headlines","10":"tag-austin-news","11":"tag-bakeries","12":"tag-coffee","13":"tag-economy","14":"tag-finance","15":"tag-pastry","16":"tag-small-business"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62937\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}