Supporting Local Businesses

Hello world, I am very excited to write this blog. I was able to get the interview that I wrote about in my previous blog. If you haven’t read my previous blog I mentioned at the end that I really wanted to interview Mrs. Andrea Gottschalk, the owner of UNIKAT. Not only because I love jewelry, but also because I would like to incorporate my own jewelry into my own shop. This was my third time in her store and I enjoy looking at all her beautiful jewelry. Her store looks very classy and I thought because of that I probably wouldn’t be able to afford anything in her store, but I was wrong. Although, she has some expensive pieces, she also has many affordable pieces that are just as beautiful, but everything in her store is worth every penny.


This is just something I wanted to share with all my readers. I’ve purchased a pendant from UNIKAT that has now become my favorite necklace. In my family the girls have this tradition. The tradition is that mothers pass a favorite piece of jewelry down to their daughters when they turn sixteen. My grandma passed down a simple gold ring to my mom on her sixteenth birthday and my mom passed the same ring down to me when I turned sixteen. I would like to continue the tradition and pass on my ring (that was given to me by my mother) and my necklace (I purchased from UNIKAT) to my daughter on her sixteenth birthday because these are my favorite pieces of jewelry. I just wanted to share this because my favorite pendant is from UNIKAT and will become apart of my family tradition. Let us move on to the good stuff I was able to learn from Mrs. Gottschalk.

My first question to Mrs. Gottschalk was which internet marketing strategies she uses to promote her business. She at first said that she doesn’t use any internet marketing strategies, but after thinking about it for a moment she told me she did have something online. She doesn’t use blogs, e-mail, newsletters, or social media, but she is apart of a group that promotes their business together. She can be found online at ACD-LV.com (Arts and Culture District) under the business directory. She is apart of a bigger group that is called AMIBA (American Independent Business Alliance), and they are trying to create a site that will offer more information, than the ACD-LV.com site. Mrs. Gottschalk said that this site will be more detailed, with pictures of work and what they specialize in. The second question I asked was which internet marketing strategy works best for her. She said that radio ads, word of mouth, and yellow pages work the best for her, but especially word of mouth.



My third question was what types of strategies she uses to promote repeat business. She has stickers with her business information and they are placed on the tops of the jewelry boxes. When I bought my pendant that was the first thing I noticed about them. I’ve also noticed that she gives out her business cards. Since I’ve been in her store I’ve been given two business cards. I have one in my wallet and one in my business folder. I like the fact that she makes sure to offer her business cards to her customers instead of leaving it up to the customers to take one. As a customer, I know that I don’t think to grab business cards when they’re out on the counter, but with Mrs. Gottschalk handing them out it ensures that customers has her name and number and remember her business.


Another strategy that she uses is cross advertising in prime locations, such as Hotels. She cross advertises with other businesses by having newsletters and business cards at their locations. Mrs. Gottschalk also said that it helps if businesses have nice business cards. Cards that are cool, so customers will notice them and then read them. When I think of business cards, I think of plain white cards, so it really got my attention when I saw UNIKAT’s cards. From my perspective having cool business cards will help small businesses because customers will look at them and want to keep them because of the way they look.

When I asked about her newsletter Mrs. Gottschalk gave me one that was in her display window. I really liked the newsletter. It listed a lot of the small business that are in Las Vegas and their address, number, and a description of what each business offers. I told her that I’ve never seen any newsletters before. She said that part of the problem with the newsletters are that they are having a hard time getting them out to the people to read and the fact that they become outdated.

The fourth question I asked was if it is important for small businesses to have better customer service than bigger businesses. Mrs. Gottschalk said, “Absolutely essential in my opinion, that customer relationship and service is even better because people will always run back to Walmart.” To follow this question I asked if she had any advice for others that would like to start their own small business and she said that to have a good reputation, good customer relations, specialize in something, and offer services. She said, “Create something you can draw groups of people, while browsing your store.” For example, she not only sells jewelry, but she also repairs and makes her own jewelry. Another example that we talked about was that an art gallery in the plaza not only sells art, but they also offer lessons for children to learn how to paint.

The last subject that Mrs. Gottschalk and I talked about was educating the locals about supporting local businesses. I don’t know how we came to this subject, but I’m glad she brought it up. She said that small business are trying to educate the locals on the importance of shopping at local businesses. Supporting bigger businesses, such as, Walmart doesn’t help the community. Supporting local business keeps the money in the town and provides jobs, which will in turn ensure the vitality of the town. She basically described it as recycling money within the town. She also added that her local customers are very important to all local small businesses, compared to the tourist that pass through, because local customers are the ones that are going to do repeat business.

I would like to thank Mrs. Gottschalk for all of her help and taking time out of her busy day to sit and chat with me during lunch time. I really enjoyed talking to her and I think a lot of what she said will help me in the future. Hopefully, this blog can help the small businesses of Las Vegas by helping to spread the word of the importance of supporting local small businesses.

Thank you World for reading my fifth blog. Peace and Love.