From Fairfield and Suisun City to Vacaville, Vallejo, Benicia, Dixon and Rio Vista, most of the businesses that make Solano County feel like home are small. The bakery that knows your order. The hardware store that will cut you one key. The salon, the taco shop, the family running the same storefront for thirty years.
The holidays are when they make or break their year. And the easiest way to help costs nothing extra: spend the money you were going to spend anyway, a little closer to home.
Small Business Saturday is November 28, 2026, the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Here is how to make it count, whether you are shopping or the one behind the counter.
Ten ways to shop small this season
- Start your list local. Before you open a shopping app, ask whether somebody nearby sells it. Bookshops, toy stores, boutiques and hardware stores will often order what they do not have on the shelf.
- Give gift cards to local places. A gift card to a favorite restaurant, coffee shop or salon is a gift and a vote of confidence. It is money in a small business’s till in December, when it counts.
- Give experiences. A class, a massage, a round of golf, a family photo session. Most of the people who sell those are local by definition.
- Eat out during the rush. Shopping is hungry work. Have lunch somewhere that is not a chain.
- Buy from makers. Craft fairs, farmers’ markets and holiday markets are full of people who made what they are selling.
- Hire local for the holiday jobs. House cleaning before the guests arrive, lights on the roof, the car detailed for the drive to Grandma’s.
- Wrap it locally too. Cards, wrapping paper and ribbon are easy to buy from a small shop instead of a big box.
- Leave a review. It takes two minutes and it is the cheapest advertising a small business ever gets. Mention the person who helped you by name.
- Share them. Post a photo of the shop, tag them, and tell your neighbors on your neighborhood app. Word of mouth is still how most people find a local business.
- Keep going in January. The quietest weeks of the year come straight after the holidays. A visit in January means as much as one in December.
For local business owners: a checklist for November 28
The busiest shopping weekend of the year is about six weeks out. A little preparation now goes a long way.
Make sure people can find you.
- Check your Google Business Profile. Your holiday hours, your phone number, a few recent photos. It is often the first thing a shopper sees, before your website.
- Look at your website on a phone. Can someone find your address, your hours and what you sell in ten seconds? If not, that is the thing to fix first.
Tell the neighborhood.
- Mail every door around you. Every Door Direct Mail lets you send a postcard to every home on the postal routes around your shop, without buying a mailing list. It is one of the most affordable ways to reach the people who live closest to you. See how it works.
- Put it in their hands. Flyers on the counter, a sign in the window, door hangers in the neighborhoods nearby.
- Give them a reason to come back. A small card in every bag with an offer for January turns a holiday shopper into a regular.
Look the part when they walk in.
- Fresh signs and window graphics. Your holiday hours in the window, a sale sign that does not look handwritten.
- Business cards and gift tags with your name and website on them, so a gift from your shop says where it came from.
Order printing early. Give yourself at least two weeks for anything printed, and more for mail: a postcard has to be designed, proofed, printed and delivered by the post office, all before the weekend it is advertising.
We are one of them
Martian Creative is a small business in Fairfield, too. We print for local shops, design their websites and help them get found, and a person answers the phone. If you are getting ready for Small Business Saturday and want help with any of the above, email us or call (707) 505-8885. We quote the same business day.
And wherever you spend your money this season: thank you for keeping it close to home.