November 18–26th
Shopping small does HUGE things for local independent businesses. What better gift to give to the community than to bring your business to small business?
To add some incentive to community shoppers, a group of Greenpoint businesses formed Shop Small Greenpoint in Fall 2022. For a week shoppers shopped specified shops, and if they made the required amount of purchases they received a swag bag. They were also entered into a grand prize drawing if they met the required amount of purchases for that.
“The idea was inspired by a similar organization and event in Astoria. We had the idea brought to us by a business, Lockwood, that has locations in both Greenpoint and Astoria. Myself and a couple of my employees organized Greenpoint Queer Pride in the Spring of 2021, so we had already begun organizing and communicating with the GP business community, both new and old. Greenpoint Queer Pride brought together retail businesses and restaurants for the common idea of giving back to LGBTQ+ organizations in the month of June. The response we had was huge and we could see the excitement from the small businesses as they came together for something bigger,” said Meg Costello, owner of Coz Salon and one of this retail crawl’s organizers.
Costello’s fellow organizers for Shop Small Greenpoint Retail Crawl are: Danielle Hartnett (Coz Salon manger), Jack Sachs (Drama Club owner), and Perri Salka (The Wondermart owner).
The upcoming fall shopping crawl will be the third; the first was last fall and they held a spring crawl this past May.
Here are the rules: pick up a passport at participating locations starting November 18 and collect stamps with your purchases through November 26. If you spend $10 or more at three participating locations, you can pick up a swag bag (shopping bag with gifts) at designated locations. Swag bags includes neighborhood discounts, business swag such as matchbooks, magnets, buttons, and other fun surprises! If you spend $10 or more at eight participating locations, you are entered into the drawing for the grand prize. There will be grand prize winners picked on November 27 (prize includes $1000+ in local gift certificates and gifts).
“We had amazing results the first crawl. We distributed over 1500 passports and 200 totes, and did the same the second crawl. We also increased the participants 40% from the first to second. We saw more people (double the amount) enter their passports for the grand prize, so we saw that MORE people were visiting MORE stores in the second crawl, which was in Spring. The Fall Crawl is looped around Black Friday and Shop Small Saturday so we were thrilled to see that increase in a non-shopping season,” said Costello.
They are hoping to continue the twice annual shopping crawl, but Costello states that will be dependent on sponsorships. “We are hoping to find a consistent sponsor. For now we have been reaching out each season. We have had a couple return sponsors but we would love to have something more solidified so we can keep our inventories and buy-in amounts consistent,” she said.
This fall crawl’s participating business are: Coz Salon, Cato’s Army & Navy, JoJo & Co. Pet Club, Brooklyn Craft Company, Stonefruit Botanical, Lockwood, myplasticheart, Line & Label, Greta Coffee + Kitchen, Frank Vintage, GreenPot, Dandelion Wine, Woods Grove, Goldpoint Jewelry, Awoke Vintage, Edy’s Grocer, The WonderMart, Parachute Brooklyn, Greenpoint Tattoo Co, Eleva Brooklyn Café, The Hair Bar & Makeup Lounge Greenpoint, Otis & Finn Barbershop, WORD Bookstores, ALTER, Local Color NYC, Marmalade, Pilates BKLYN, For The Record, Proprietors, Maison Jar, Last Place On Earth, Macha Studio, Tend Greenpoint, renewfinds, Common Good, and Big Night.
For more info check out Shop Small Greenpoint’s Instagram: @shopsmallgreenpoint
They are currently selling limited edition Crawl t-shirts featuring their mascot ‘Baggy’. All of the proceeds go directly back into the crawl to help minimize costs for the participating businesses. To purchase a t-shirt go here: https://shop-small-greenpoint.myshopify.com/
The Greenline 