#833: Pink Friday 2026: The Small Business Event You Can't Afford to Miss

Welcome to the Boutique Chat Podcast, where we're gonna help you build a profitable, sustainable business without you having to sacrifice your profitability, your family, or your sanity. Each week we're gonna dive into real conversations with retailers who have been exactly where you are and industry experts so you can learn and know exactly what to do next, all in community over competition. Whether you're just getting started or you're growing past an 8-figure business, you're in the right spot. So let's get into it. Welcome to this week's episode. Hey guys, welcome back to the podcast. This week I am joined by the Retail Professor in the flesh. Oh my gosh. And we are gonna talk all things Pink Friday. So I know you guys are busy planning out your 4th quarter, you're planning out your holiday season, and this happens to be one of the biggest opportunities, I think overlooked opportunities of the year for a lot of retailers. So if you guys are watching and you aren't yet familiar with what Pink Friday is, do you wanna talk about what it means?

Absolutely. So Pink Friday is something we started way back in 2020 as a way to get more shoppers in your store before Black Friday. Yes, there's Small Business Saturday and all the things, but that comes after Black Friday. So we wanted to capitalize on shoppers who want to get out early, who want to support you, and provide some sort of a fun experience, a day to celebrate you, the small business owner. So we did it before Black Friday. Yeah. So it's November 20th. It's always the Friday before Black Friday, and it's just a day to celebrate small businesses and get out and support Small first before the big stores.

Yeah, I— our entire theme for Pink Friday is support small first, so you'll see that tagline a ton. And I think the biggest opportunity is when it comes to Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, I feel like the national media is telling their story of what they think is happening in retail and in small business. But there's a big opportunity for Pink Friday to work with your local media. Sarah puts together press releases and media packets so that you can work with your local media to tell your story Before the big box guys tell us all the things retail, but tell your story of what it means to be a small business owner today, what it means to serve your local community and why you got started. Because I think that people are really interested in you as a business owner and what it means to support your small business in their community, whether you're brick and mortar or you're an online business. Right?

Right. Yeah. And the, the thing is, when you are that small business owner, we know you are head down doing the work every day, all day, right? The big box stores, they've got somebody sitting up in a corporate high-rise somewhere giving them planograms and telling them when to run this sale, what to put on sale, when to have this event, what time to open, what time to close, all of those things. You have that ability to make things up as you go, right? And create unique opportunities for your customers. And that's what they love you for. So this is a way, as Christmas kind of creeps earlier and earlier every year, this is a way for you to get their attention and provide an opportunity for them to celebrate you before the big box stores. I, I, I kind of love telling this story. When I had my store, nothing used to bother me more than my shoppers coming in, on Small Business Saturday and saying, oh, Sarah, I would totally buy that jacket, but I just bought a TV yesterday on Black Friday. Or I had this— I went to this Black Friday event yesterday. I spent all my money, but I wanted to say hi. I want to support you. And that's great. Yeah, but what happens if we get their attention first as small business owners and not second?

Yeah. And there was already, you know, years before we started Pink Friday, there was a lot of retailers who were kind of offensively hosting open houses and holiday previews. And there was a lot of people that had events. So we were like, okay, but what if we all teamed up in community over competition and put everything together on one day? And some people look at it not just as Pink Friday, but Pink Friday weekend where there's a whole opportunity. Yep.

Yeah. So I, I can tell you what we like to do, and I love to get a group of shoppers together and we celebrate this every single year. It's like a girls' week, right? And we organize where we're going to go logistically on the map. Are we going south of our town, northwest, whatever it is? And we make a big event out of it. We get a whole group of people together, we just go explore new towns, discover new small businesses and all the things and have an absolute blast. And then those shoppers shop those stores all year round and make relationships. Why? Because it's different, it's unique. And when they get into those brand new stores or find those new shops online, they have a new experience. And that's what, that's what women shoppers, we love that, right? We want something fun, we want something unique. And that's, That's what small businesses are wanting to do. That's what you're gifted at. So that's how we like to celebrate. How do you like to celebrate it?

Yeah, so in my community, same. I get a big group of friends together and it's like friends of friends of friends. I don't always know everybody, but I charge $20 a person just to cover a bus and we rent a huge bus. Yeah. And we go around and I have so many messages every year and they're like, okay, where are we going? We know there's so many boutiques in this area, but they don't always know who they are, where they are. And so it is a discovery opportunity. So I would say from a retailer's perspective, the best thing you can do if you're a brick and mortar is find other people to collaborate with. You may not have someone like Sarah or I in your community who's organizing a bus route, so you might have to do that on your own. So where, I guess, of the retailers that you've seen have successful Pink Friday events, tell me about like boutique crawls or organized events across full communities that you've seen.

Yeah, this for you as a small business owner, this is your opportunity to be the leader in your space. So, and it doesn't matter if you're online or brick and mortar or you're both, right? So get together, send out some information to your fellow retailers, and I'm talking about your floral shops, your, candy stores, your restaurants, you know, your local bars or taverns, your other clothing stores, shoe stores, you name it, wine and cheese stores, and create a shopping experience in your community. And then organize a boutique crawl. Yeah. And advertise it and collaborate together, right? That marketing dollar split across all those businesses then goes a lot farther. But get your local chamber involved, get your city involved. Yeah. Tell your local media stations, your news outlets, your TV channels, your radio stations what you're gonna be doing, because I guarantee you they're looking for the good news to spread, right? There's so much humdrum in the world. They're looking for ways to shine a light on good things. And that's exactly what Pink Friday is all about. So then once you start building this opportunity, then you can promote that to shoppers. Yeah. And we actually have a Support Small First map that when you sign up to get on Pink Friday, your store, your location, your online store is automatically added onto the Support Small First map that we push out to shoppers all over the country. Last year we had stores all over the world. Denmark, the Ukraine, we had the UK, Puerto Rico, Canada, all over, all over the United States participating in Pink Friday. And guess what? When that many stores get involved, thousands and thousands of stores are involved, the major news networks pick it up and they want to promote it not just before and during, but after. And so what does that do? Get more eyeballs, more foot traffic in your store. So you can sell more often and create lifetime customers from those, those shoppers.

Yeah, I, I want to call out a couple things that you mentioned. I think the boutique crawl doesn't have to be just a boutique, like you said. Yeah, it could be hairstylists, it could be a tire store, it could be the local bar, it could be a restaurant, it could be anything. It's really a day not just for boutique owners but for all small business owners. And the other thing that you mentioned I think is really important, and I keep hearing this a lot, is A lot of people are working with their local Chamber of Commerce, their Main Street Association to try to help organize this event. So if you're in a community and somebody has a question about what Pink Friday is, we offer a ton of resources. It's free to participate. We'll send you all the resources that you need in order to know what it is and to share it with your community so that you can set up some kind of an event. But online stores also participate in Pink Friday. Can you talk about maybe some online event ideas for people?

This is really fun because I, you can get as creative as you want in store, but also think about the opportunities online. We see stores a lot of times do different giveaways. They do gift bundles, they do different things. Or I've also seen stores hide like a scavenger hunt on their website of different things on different pages where shoppers go to find these. It kind of gamifies the shopping situation, right? Mm-hmm. Or you can also collaborate with other stores where when you support my store at checkout, I'm giving you a gift card or a coupon for your boutique bestie store, another store that is participating in this collaboration as well. So it's a win-win and your customer is shared with my customer together we all win. And so I love all that. And another way is if you're doing live sales, you know, you can do big Pink Friday, you know, marathon lives with some retailers as well. Lots of different ways to really capitalize on the entire moment. And like Ashley said, it doesn't have to just be one day. It could be that whole weekend. It could be that whole kickoff to your, your, you know, Christmas shopping season in your store. But don't hesitate to reach out to your local chambers and things like that and ask them for some guidance or help promote you. Odds are if they don't, they're not going to jump on it themselves because they just don't know where to start. Let them know all they have to do is sign up for Pink Friday. We will send you the entire kit to get started and maximize this event. It comes with graphics, it comes with the press release, it comes with boutique crawl checklists, it comes with all these guides, it comes with an actual playbook, a pre-event playbook. Current during event playbook, and then the post-call. So you can, you can analyze absolutely every piece of this energy effort that you put into this opportunity and learn from it and capitalize on it for next year. So yeah, we set you up for success 100%. That's what we do at the Hub.

Yeah. And I think the important thing to note there is with the media, it's not just about them covering you like during the event, but the more you can get a relationship with your local news outlets and then let that carry all year round and let you be the local authority on whether it's styling your body or styling your home or gift giving, you're Media outlets are always looking for stories to tell, not promotional stories just about you and like why you're so awesome, because we know you are, but they also want to solve people's problems. And so when you can help them solve people's problems through really good content, then you become a resident authority. And that's great for SEO, it's great for your social media, and it's going to bring you new eyeballs all year round. Are you ready to team up for Pink Friday 2026? You are officially invited to join us and to save the date, November 20th, 2026, to support Small First. If you're ready to team up with fellow small business owners around the world, literally over 10,000 small business owners. We're gonna team up the Friday before Black Friday, held annually every year, to show the world what it means to support small businesses first. You know, on Black Friday, everyone can shop at big box stores and spend their budgeted funds, but what about supporting small businesses like yours first? Pink Friday is your opportunity to collaborate in community over competition with all types of small business owners to get on the Pink Friday map. to host Pink Friday events either in person or online, and to also team up with your local media to tell the story of why you started this business and why it's important for customers to think of shopping your small business first. So sign up, save the date, and join us on Pink Friday coming November 20th, 2026.

Yeah.

Okay, Sarah, I think there's a misconception that if someone's gonna participate in Pink Friday or Black Friday, that they have to run a sale.

Oh, absolutely not. No, this is all about excitement and creativity and just creating an opportunity. It's not about a discount. I mean, that's what we have Black Friday for. That's already covered. This is more about a celebration. And that's why it's pink, right? It's get more attention on you. What else draws more attention in November than something that's pink, right? That's why it's not orange. They wouldn't notice it if it was orange, but pink in November, that catches an eye. So it's more about the experience and the celebration. than it is about, I don't know, discounts.

Yeah, I would say it's more about telling your story. It's more about collaborating with other people. It's celebrating with food, with drink, with giveaways, spin the wheel at checkout, all of those types of things. All right, so one big goal during the holiday season is to end the holiday season with more profit and more peace. And I think those things can be robbed when we're just chasing giving away discounts and hosting all these events without having a plan. What are your best pieces of advice for a retailer really wanting to have profit What should they focus on first for the holiday season?

Oh my gosh, get organized and have a guide and start early. I think that's so important. If you use that playbook that we will send you and just go step by step through that, it, it allows you to start on November 20th and then work your way backwards day by day, little things that you can be doing so you don't feel like you have to do it all at once, right? So I think planning and preparing in advance is so important, but I also think leaning in on who you are and why, why you even want to participate And just live in that space, right? Don't try to be something you're not. Don't just feel like you have to do this to check a box. Really, like, put, put your, your personality behind this and be that magnet. Get your shoppers in there to really support you, and then they're going to support you all year round. But in order to have that peace, I think being yourself in your offering is what it's all about. Yeah. And that's the magnet. That's what people are looking for. But I also, I will tell you, it will pay back in dividends all year round when you make your customers feel the magic. And that's when that can happen on, on November 20th for Pink Friday. They can feel the magic of the power of a small business. They don't get that magic on Black Friday. That is a, that is a big hit of I saved some money and I'm over it tomorrow. Yeah. The feeling that you want your customers to leave with, whether it's on your site or whether it's in your store, that lasts a long time. And you're going to call these people by name. You're going to look them in the eye. You're going to create an opportunity. They're going to discover something new and they're going to look to you as that industry expert that they can trust. Not just on Pink Friday, but all year round.

Yeah. Capture that content. You know, get a videographer for the day or make sure you have someone to help you with social for the day, but get customer testimonials, get as much content as you can. 'Cause I think that's gonna fill your content bucket for a long time too. Yep. Um, but just building trust. You're a real person. You're not made in China. You're not, you know, Shein and Temu. You're not some junk. Like you're the real deal. So tell that story.

100%. And that when you, when you do that, you're gonna get testimonials back from your customers. And those testimonials are gonna, fuel your energy all year round, right? It's also going to help you know and stay laser-focused to do what you do, serve who you serve. And there's a lot of peace in that when you're not just chasing after everybody else's dreams and you're just following yours.

Yeah. All right, I want to talk about one last thing when it comes to profit and peace, and that's inventory. Okay, uh, so as we're filming this podcast for you guys, we happen to be in LA. We just led a group of buyers through the LA experience. We're here in a wholesale vendor's space. And I think the biggest opportunity you have for keeping the profit— again, don't chase sales, don't chase last year's numbers, trying to beat last year's numbers. I want you to chase profit in the bank. And one of the best ways to do that is by really doing a great job buying and finding doorbusters and deals ahead of time like we're doing right now. Um, talk about some strategies when it comes to buying your inventory for Pink Friday and for the holiday season to keep more profit.

Oh my gosh, okay, so I love this question. Focus on that margin. There's a time and a place for discounts, and there's some things that it's just in your inventory, we're done with. It's time to move that out. But then also when you're thinking about raising excitement and generating, you know, goodwill and lifelong customers, you know, we want to look and think, okay, what can we do and remain profitable? But what can we do right now while I have their attention to keep them excited all year round? One of the things I really like is giving them, giving them some sort of a teaser or some sort of, I'll call it like a, a doorbuster deal or something on something you know they're going to get addicted to. So you might give it at a discount over this season, right? But they're going to come back and replenish that year after year. It could be as simple as a white layering piece tank top. It could be a face wash. It could be a lotion. It could be a perfume. It could be, who knows, maybe it's their favorite fuzzy socks that they love to give for gifts. Some of those things that they love, they fall in love with, and they're just like, oh my gosh, I need those all year round. Introduce those at this time, right? Or, or maybe give something like that away that you know is going to— you're going to have a pricing, you have a pricing for profit where you're making that margin all year round and they're going to replenish that throughout the year. Hmm. I think that's a really good strategy to improve your lifetime value of that customer versus just giving away something that's not even on brand for you. And honestly kind of confuses your customer. Like, why do they even have that? Because if that doesn't work, then now what are you going to do with it? Right? Now you're stuck with it. But so then when you're, when you're sourcing these products and you want to look and think, okay, where do I— I'm going to go deeper in my, my doorbusters. I'm going to go deeper in my, you know, my, my exciting products that I'm launching on Pink Friday. Why? Because I'm going to advertise to them. I'm going to run ads. I'm going to take a lot of content with them and I'm going to push this out. So odds are more than 6 people are going to come in and be able to capitalize on this. So it's a loss if you do all that energy and effort to market it, but then you can only actually sell Yeah. So pick those big items that are going to be your core piece and build around that. Build a whole marketing plan around that so your margins stay high, right? So you're, you know, you're, you're gonna have a high sell-through. You're not gonna have to discount those. But when you're sourcing them, be on the lookout for the best, the best, uh, buy that you possibly can find. And that's one of the reasons why we're out here in LA. So we're getting things at amazing prices. That, that's where we can build our big margins from. But But don't just start discounting your stuff to discount. Everything should have a purpose behind it. Everything, every discount should have a purpose behind it. And I love it when you're introducing something or you're giving them something of value at that time that they are going to again, then come back over and over and over for.

Yeah. And when you say, you know, getting things at amazing prices, the better relationships you have, the more relationships you have with your vendors, whether you've built that out here in LA or you've gone to shows or you're working with your reps, if you're home and gift and you're buying in showrooms, but the more relationships you have, the more opportunity you have to hear about what those discounts are, because everyone has closeouts. Like, just like you have to mark things out and get rid of them, your vendors do too. And so why not jump on that opportunity and use those as your doorbusters so that you can buy it low and sell it high, right? Like, get a 65% initial markup so that when you knock it off 20% for Black Friday or whatever it is, you're still making the same amount of margin at the end of the day. All right.

Yeah, and it still has to fall in line with what your core buying plan is.

Yeah,

don't just invest in something because

A deal.

A deal, right? Because it doesn't matter if it's a deal or not. If it's not what your customers want, it could do more damage to your brand at that time than it could benefit, right? You might get a little bit of cash in for it, but if people get it home and realize that's not the quality that your store puts out, that can have a negative effect. So I love margin. I love, I love making the money, right? But we have to keep it in our lane of who we are and who we're serving and the value proposition that we're giving our customers. We can't falter on that. Whether it's Pink Friday, Black Friday, Cyber Monday,

anything.

We gotta be true to ourselves.

Very good. All right. What last piece of advice do you have for anybody thinking about participating in Pink Friday?

Well, the biggest thing you guys want is more shoppers, and we know it. We are not here to just give you another thing to do. We want to drive traffic into your store, onto your website. So the best thing that you can do right now is sign up, get on that map, because that map is gonna be pushed out all over to shoppers and they're gonna see that and they're gonna be able to find you. That is a great way for you to get discovered. So help shoppers find you. Sign up. It's free. We're going to give you all the resources and tools, the graphics, the made-for-you graphics, the, the playbook, all the things. This is a no excuse. You sign up, tell your Boutique Bessie to sign up, tell your chamber to sign up, tell your hardware store down the street to sign up. Get people on that map, draw attention to your community, and have a great Pick Friday.

I love that. Share the map. Get on the map, share the map. A lot of boutique owners share the map because it's not just about promoting yourself, but it's about community over competition and sharing one another as well so that we are all pushing to grow this industry together. My last piece of advice would just be, uh, take the time to send in the press release, get a list of your local media outlets. Um, AI can help you with all of that. Boss can help you with all of that. Yes. But build those connections so that that can continue to serve you year round as well. This is a great kicking off point to get some press. But that's the gift that keeps on giving over the holiday season as well.

You bet. You're going to put this energy into Pink Friday. Yeah, the week before Black Friday. But I guarantee you, you will still be reaping the rewards from this on Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and beyond.

Yeah. Awesome. All right. Well, you guys, I've got all the information in today's show notes, also down below wherever you're catching this on social media so that you can come join us. Sign up for Pink Friday, tell your friends, and we can't wait to celebrate with you on November 20th and always the Friday before Black Friday. All right, we'll see you guys there. Hey guys, thanks so much for listening to this week's episode. If you found it helpful, please share it with a friend or feel free to subscribe. And I would always love it if you would leave a rating and review. Hey, if you want more tools, education, and just support, head on over to theboutiquehub.com. Or if you have feedback or episode ideas, DM me personally, AJ Alderson, on Instagram. Thanks so much for being here and listening to this week's episode. I'll see you next week.