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Alumni

Have an inspiring business story?: A different kind of FriYAY🕴️

This is a different type of FriYAY!

 

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Do you or another Square Seller you know have an inspiring story?

Has your business been around for 4 generations?
Have you recently expanded locations or hiring?
Have you impacted your community in a positive way?

 

We want to hear from you!

 

We're featuring stories of our amazing Sellers during the Seller Community's birthday week and want to hear directly from our community members. Fill out this form or leave a comment below to submit a story. 

 

Bonus points if they're already part of the community 🙂

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We are a small Arizona brick and mortar coffee shop in a town of 4,000, but with about 2 million visitors passing by our front doors on their way to the beaches in Mexico. Local shoppers are extremely important for our business to stay open year round, and we recently tried offering a discount to other local businesses that helped us find a way to partner with them.

 

We offer a 15% cash discount on our Square gift cards to businesses in town that want to use them for promotional purposes, i.e., for their employees, or a thank you to valuable customers. One local art gallery offers a free $10 gift card to our shop when a customer spends $50 or more in his gallery. He pays $8.50 for the gift card, and we see only about 50% of gift card cash value actually redeemed, which means great margins for us. The gallery owner called me after just 4 days and said, "I need more gift cards! I sold out after posting on facebook that we were offering them with purchase!"

 

This has been a huge success for us! It is bringing in more shoppers to this gallery in particular, and many of our other local businesses are using them as employee gifts and promotional materials. 

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Alumni

What an incredible and inspirational story @harriscoffee! Thank you for sharing. I'd love to learn more about your business, so I'll be following up with a private message shortly. 

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Sure, sounds good!

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Super Seller

That's a great idea!

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I love that idea 🙂

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Great story. My town is also small, where I have my shop/studio. I'm a coppersmith/artist/furniture maker and we sit at one of the few direct entrances to the scenic Blue Ridge Parkway and 6 miles from a four seasons resort, that packs thousand captive people in each week. Our towns elders have no concept of how to market this little gem and a few of us are trying to drive things, inward. 

Your story is inspireing and hopefully we can use the gift card idea in Elkton, as well. 

Bob

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Our town is becoming more and more known for tourism and doesn't have the experience to know what to do with it...if you ever want to brainstorm ideas, let us know how we can help! 

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Alumni

Wow, this is awesome, thanks for sharing this idea, @harriscoffee

 

@sciabica1936 has put together a really cool event by banding together with other local businesses in a similar way. @sciabica1936 - if you have a minute I'm sure others here would love to hear more about what you're doing in Modesto! 

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I literally had $500 two years ago when I started my first store. Due to being a single mom of 3 and a divorce, my credit was not very good. Loans were not a option. So, I took the $500 and rented a small tiny store in a basement of a hotel. I’m a psychic-medium and do readings. I also have a spiritual store where I do classes and events and sell many home made spell products I make. Plus normal retail supplies such as crystals and incense. 

I worked so hard. There were days in the beginning I didn’t have a customer for days as far as my retail end. I survived by doing my readings. 16 hours a day. Then things changed fast! As word got around, more and more people started coming in to buy things. The local paper did a big article on my full moon gatherings on the beach and the rest is history! It took about 8 hard working months and I was able to get the store next to my reading room . Now I have 2 stores together and use one for readings and healings and the other for retail. 2 years later I’m set to move out of the basement soon and have a store front and business is so busy I had to hire : part timers. I was also approached to write a book I’m working on and have huge ideas for great community events to promote community and positivity! Honestly a piece of my success is due to square Capital for believing in me and extending loans so I could expand and buy more inventory. Hard work and belief in yourself is key to success. I love what I do and passion will get you through any hard times. People that know me can’t believe how fast my life turned around for the better so quick. I give credit to myself, square and a little bit of magic from the universe:) 

love and light everyone 

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Alumni

🙌🏽 Amazing @MandiesMagical3! I'd also love to chat with you in more depth about your experience any advice you might have for fellow business owners. I'll send you a private message too. Thanks again for sharing!

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