As many of you already know, Neon Bandits is a side-hustle business for Sammy and myself, meaning we're both very fortunate that we have full-time jobs. And as a small business, it may seem odd to be saying this, but we are asking that you don't shop our small business this holiday season, we are asking that you shop other small businesses. We aren’t going to stop you from spending your money on our website, but we know that everyone has a budget and we’d rather you spend your holiday gift budget with another small business.
Why are we doing this? We have seen and experienced the challenges of running a small business during a global pandemic, and have worked alongside countless small business partners and customers that have their livelihoods on the line. Over the past 18+ months, businesses are being stretched in ways that they never thought was imaginable. Issues include, but are not limited to:
- Manufacturing shutting down and subsequent supply chain delays
- Increased cost of raw materials
- Shipping delays & increased costs in transportation
- Rising advertising costs and changing rules around the sharing of information online making it more expensive to acquire new customers
All of these issues are making it incredibly challenging for small businesses to compete with the “big guys,” let alone to win. Take it from a Boston-based Bonetown Burgers. They shared on Twitter some of the pricing challenges that they are facing:
These challenges that businesses are facing are very real. And while we would love to be able to help these businesses, we don’t have a huge reach or budget. But we are going to try to do our part to help.
To help support some small businesses we know and love, we'll be highlighting their custom socks and shouting out where they can be purchased. To stay in the loop on this, you can do one (or all three) of these items:
- Follow our Instagram account (@NeonBandits) and stay tuned to our stories to check out some of our custom work and learn about some of the small businesses that we currently work with.
- Subscribe to our email newsletter and stay plugged to your inbox for a “roundup” of sorts highlighting our custom socks.
- Tell your friends and family what we are up to and encourage them to follow us on Instagram and subscribe to our email list.
If you are able to we encourage you to shop small, and shop early this holiday season.
*Our feature photo is of Bron at Broncore Fitness. If you are in the Boston area, hit him up for some great body-burning workouts!