Harvard Square To Support Local Businesses, Charities on Black Friday

Harvard Square is gearing up to usher in the holiday season with a unique take on the Black Friday tradition. The Harvard Square Business Association is planning to use the days following Thanksgiving to promote local businesses and authors, as well as to benefit charitable causes.

The day after Thanksgiving, the Square will celebrate “Plaid Friday”—a national movement encouraging customers to shop locally, rather than participating in “big box” Black Friday, according to Cambridge Local First. With locally owned, independent businesses accounting for 75 percent of Square storefronts, the Harvard Square Business Association began promoting Plaid Friday several years ago, according to HSBA Executive Director Denise A. Jillson.

The Association’s website features 23 Square businesses planning to offer in-store discounts on Friday, but the list is not exhaustive.

For some stores, this year’s holiday shopping also offers an opportunity to promote charitable organizations. Black Ink, at 5 Brattle St., intends to donate 10 percent of its sales on Friday to the United Nations Food Programme, aiding in its efforts to bring relief to survivors in the typhoon-stricken Philippines. Susan L. Corcoran, the store’s owner, wrote in an email to The Crimson that last year, Black Ink donated a portion of its Plaid Friday sales to those affected by Hurricane Sandy.

“This year, the typhoon in the Philippines struck those who were already in need, so it was easy to see that was where our donation would go in 2013,” she wrote. “Just a drop in the bucket, but I’m glad to see even more good coming from the day that we begin to shop in celebration of our families and friends.”

Following Black Friday, the Harvard Book Store plans to participate in “Small Business Saturday” by promoting the Indies First movement, created by author Sherman Alexie, in which local writers will visit independent bookshops to act as booksellers for the day. The list of expected attendees at the Harvard Book Store includes University professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., History and African and African American Studies professor Walter Johnson, folklore and mythology professor Maria Tatar, and Harvard Law School professor Randall L. Kennedy.

“We have 19 authors coming to us on Saturday who will be here at staggered periods of the day,” store manager Mark Lamphier said. “We also asked each of them to come up with a list of books they want to evangelize for, so they are all talking about books they love, as well as their own books.”

Although previous Black Fridays in Harvard Square have been characterized as “low-key” or as yielding “mixed results”, recent years have witnessed an upswing in the day’s turnout that storeowners said they expect to continue.

“We were in the same swamp of an economy as everybody else starting in the fall of 2008,” Lamphier said. “It’s definitely gotten better the last couple of years, and Black Friday is actually somewhat a bigger deal for us now than it used to be.”

Yet brick and mortar shops still face the challenge of competing with the Internet to attract in-store crowds. Jillson said that the amount of online holiday shopping has grown in recent years, but she said she believes that visiting the Square is worth bundling up and braving the cold.

“In order to really experience the spirit of the season and enjoy all the things that come with it—from the nip in the air to the hot chocolate to the decorations—you need to leave your laptop at home and come out and enjoy it,” Jillson said.

—Staff writer Nikki D. Erlick can be reached at nikki.erlick@thecrimson.com. Follow her on Twitter @nikkierlick.