Win Big: Shop Small This Holiday Season in Portland

You may have heard of Small Business Saturday, which is one of the three big shopping days of the early holiday season (the others being Black Friday and Cyber Monday). But here in Portland, there’s a local effort to encourage shopping at small businesses in Portland for a month, from November 14 to December 15! And that would be the Win Big campaign from Small Shops Big Hearts, part of Bricks Need Mortar, which supports Oregon’s independent retailers.

But First, Small Business Saturday

As mentioned above, the Win Big campaign has been going on since November 14, 2024, but it only buzzed onto my radar this week. Like I mentioned, Small Business Saturday is pretty well-known, established by AMEX 2010 and supported by the U.S. Small Business Administration starting in 2011. Here’s a bit of its history.

One thing I like to do when getting to know a campaign like this is to find out if it has a map. Small Business Saturday does have one on the AMEX site, but let me tell you—this map has too many inaccuracies on it. Hogan’s Goat? Closed. The Paper Bridge? Wrong location. A 404? Mistakes in the HTML code. Good thing there is something else out there: Win Big.

What Drives the Win Big Campaign?

It may be a little confusing to know how these three elements—Win Big, Small Shops Big Hearts, and Bricks Need Mortar—interact. Here’s a summary:

Bricks Need Mortar: Started by Sarah Shaoul during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, this is a membership organization that provides advocacy, guidance, marketing, and resources for Oregon’s independent retailers. They believe in community over competition and that rising tides raise all boats.
Small Shops Big Hearts: This is the marketing arm of Bricks Need Mortar. They encourage people to shop at independent retailers and businesses in Portland driving foot traffic there, and encouraged development of the Win Big app.
Win Big: This is the campaign for the holiday shopping season. It has gamified elements via its app, and an active social media campaign behind it.

Win Big: How You Do It

The first thing you’ll have to do is download the app and create an account. I know that some of you out there will not be into it, and I get that. You can see some of the participating businesses via the Small Shops Big Hearts Instagram. They’ve done a nice job splitting things up into Portland’s quadrants: Northeast, Southeast, Northwest, Southwest + South, and North.

The App and Raffle Tickets

But back to the app. This is where you get to access the gamification of shopping for Win Big, and a way to win prizes. You can read how to play, here.

It involves scanning QR codes. (Aside: Were you surprised how QR codes made such a strong comeback during the pandemic? I thought they were kinda dead, ngl.) Each time you visit a participating retailer you scan a “visit” QR code, which gives you one raffle entry (only one visit entry per shop, total).

Now, if you purchase something you scan a “purchase” QR code and get three points. Additionally, “Raffle entries double after 3 purchases, triple after 6, and quadruple after 9.”

Trading Cards

This is another thing that seems to be pretty popular: trading cards. We saw their popularity during the recent Portland election, and Win Big is using this marketing vehicle, too. Personally, I love them.

The point of the cards is to collect them and also share photos of them on your Instagram Stories, tagged with @smallshops.bighearts You’ll also need to follow that account.

Trading card winners, randomly selected from the week’s entries, are announced every Friday.

Win Big … Prizes!

Yes, this is marketing, but there are prizes. And they look pretty good! Here are some of them:

Tickets to Thorns and Blazers games
A one-night stay in the Meadowlark Suite at VioletSuitesPDX, a boutique hotel
One night at the Bowline Hotel in Astoria
$100 gift certificate from The Arrangement
Personal Stylist appointment with $100 store credit from Garnish Apparel
Oregon Ballet Theatre tickets
Four adult general admission tickets to Hopscotch

What About the Food and Drink?

I downloaded the app to check out the food and drink participants. They include:

Azar Indulgences (chocolate and coffee)
Creo Chooclate (their unsweetened chocolate bar is very good)
Keia & Martyn’s Coffee (I first had this at The Sports Bra and loved it)
Newks pop-up (hot sauce)
Savory Spice Portland (culinary spice store)
The Meadow (chocolate, salt and specialty foods)
New Deal Distillery
Straightaway Cocktails (canned cocktails)
Nossa Familia Coffee

Honestly, I would love to see more eats and drinks on this list. But this is a good start. I’m also going to remind the universe that “the whole city“of Portland includes east of 82nd Avenue.

Bottom line: Shopping locally from independent retailers and businesses is a great thing to do this holiday season—and the rest of the year. I applaud the efforts of this Win Big campaign and I hope it’s a great success for our local businesses.

Win Big from Small Shops Big Hearts
Shop at local Portland retailers for the holidays
Thursday, November 14 to Sunday, December 15, 2024
Portland, Oregon
Win Big website | Instagram | Facebook