When I was growing up, I don't remember anybody telling us to Shop Small. There weren't hashtags reminding us to support independent businesses, beautifully designed Instagram posts telling us that buying from a small business makes someone do a happy dance, or campaigns encouraging us to put our money back into our local communities.
We just did.
My dad was a butcher and we lived above the shop. Yes, the irony of the butcher's daughter growing up to be vegan isn't lost on me 😂. Dad worked extraordinarily long days, often around 16 hours, and there were times when I could go days barely seeing him despite us technically being under the same roof. Sometimes I'd catch him on the landing on my way to bed and get a quick cuddle before he disappeared downstairs again.
Although apparently I didn't always have the patience to wait for him. I have vague memories of finding it absolutely hilarious, aged about three or four, to escape after my bath and run downstairs completely naked, through the shop, to find Dad and give him a goodnight hug and kiss, with my poor mum frantically chasing after me carrying a towel. Clothes or no clothes, if I'd seen Dad in the shop when I'd come through on my way upstairs, there was clearly no chance I was going to bed without saying goodnight properly.
But when I hear the words small business, that's still what I picture.
Now my own children are older, they're the ones standing beside me, helping me wrap orders or pour oils into bottles. They're growing up around my little business in much the same way I grew up around Dad's, and I sometimes wonder what they'll remember about Olive & Joyce when they're my age.
I hope it's determination. I hope it's pride in knowing that we're doing something that helps people, helps the planet and, in our own tiny way, helps keep small, independent businesses alive. But more than anything, I hope they remember that you don't have to build something enormous for it to matter. Sometimes something small, made with care and a lot of heart, can leave a much bigger mark than you ever realise.
Small Business Before It Had a Hashtag
The independent businesses of my childhood were simply part of everyday life. The butcher, baker, greengrocer, newsagent, corner shop and Tuesday and Saturday market traders weren't necessarily trying to build a brand. They were trying to make a living, support their families and hopefully have enough left over to do it all again the following week.
The person behind the counter was very often the person who owned the business. Their partner might help with the books, their children might be upstairs doing their homework and somebody's mum was probably roped in when things got busy.
Nobody talked about founder stories because you already knew the founder. He was standing behind the counter. Nobody invited you to meet the maker because you'd just handed the maker your money.
I don't want to romanticise it either, because I saw what running that sort of business required. Sixteen-hour days aren't particularly Instagrammable. Neither is worrying about bills, working when you're exhausted or knowing that if you don't turn up, the shop doesn't open.
That was small business to me.
Which is perhaps why I've started wondering what small business actually means now.
How Small Is Small?
This is where things get slightly strange, because our everyday understanding of a small business and the official definition aren't necessarily the same thing.
Under current UK rules used for company accounts, a company can qualify as small if it meets at least two of three criteria: no more than 50 employees, turnover of no more than £15 million, and no more than £7.5 million on its balance sheet.
£15 million.
I don't know about you, but when somebody says “please support this small business”, £15 million isn't necessarily what springs into my head.
There are different definitions depending on what the term is being used for too. Under another government definition used for SMEs in public procurement, an SME can have up to 249 staff and as much as £44 million in annual turnover, providing it meets the relevant criteria.
I'm not saying those businesses aren't entitled to be called SMEs. They absolutely are under those definitions, and governments, accountants and statisticians need categories. But there is an interesting difference between the official meaning of small business and what many of us picture when somebody tells us to Shop Small.
Because I don't picture 49 employees and £15 million going through the till.
I picture my dad.
Perhaps What We Mean Is Micro
There's another category for businesses at the smallest end. Under the same UK company-accounting rules, a micro-entity can have up to 10 employees and turnover of up to £1 million, provided it meets at least two of the qualifying conditions.
Even that sounds rather enormous from where I'm sitting.
Olive & Joyce is a micro business, although micro makes it sound as though I occasionally make three jars of face cream before wandering off for a cup of tea.
In reality, being a micro-business owner often means being an entire company disguised as one person. I'm the person making the products, ordering ingredients, filling jars, labelling them, packing orders, answering messages, writing blogs, taking photographs, updating the website, doing the accounts and taking parcels to the Post Office.
There isn't a marketing department. There's me opening Canva.
There isn't a customer-services team. There's me replying to your email.
And there isn't Sandra from Accounts.
Actually, that's a lie.
I'm Sandra too.
Has ‘Shop Small’ Become a Marketing Phrase?
Shop Small. Shop Local. Support Independent.
They're lovely sentiments, and I absolutely believe in them. Olive & Joyce has survived because people have deliberately chosen to spend their money with me when they could have bought skincare from companies with advertising budgets I couldn't begin to compete with.
But I do wonder whether Shop Small has become such an attractive marketing phrase that we've stopped asking what small actually means.
If a one-person business making products at the kitchen table and a company employing dozens of people and turning over millions can both sit beneath the broad umbrella of small business, we're talking about very different realities.
That doesn't mean one deserves support and the other doesn't. Growing a successful company is something to celebrate, and I certainly don't want Olive & Joyce to remain exactly the same size forever. I'd quite like more orders, thank you very much.
But perhaps we need to be a little more curious about what's behind the words.
When Shopping Small Was Just Shopping
When I think back to the high streets of my childhood, independent businesses seemed much more ordinary. You didn't necessarily make a special decision to support them because they were simply where you went.
You went to the butcher for meat, the greengrocer for vegetables, the bakery for bread and the market for everything else. The money moved around the community without anybody having to make a conscious effort to make that happen.
Life changed. Supermarkets grew, retail parks appeared, online shopping arrived and suddenly we could order almost anything while sitting on the sofa in our pyjamas. I'm certainly not going to pretend I'm immune to that convenience. Sometimes I need something tomorrow and I'm not embarking on a three-hour tour of Sussex independent retailers to prove a philosophical point.
Of course, what small business looks like has changed too. It doesn't always mean a shopfront on the high street anymore. As supermarkets and larger chains have grown, rents have risen and some independents have been pushed out of physical spaces, many small and micro businesses have simply found a new front door online. I've seen it happen here in Brighton, where local independents have had to leave their shops, including some near me when the Co-op next door expanded. Small business hasn't disappeared, it's just changed where you find the front door.
But perhaps convenience has changed our relationship with small businesses. What used to be ordinary has almost become an act of support.
We now say Shop Small because we have to remind ourselves that small businesses are still there.
Why One Order Really Can Matter
There's a phrase you often see online saying that when you buy from a small business, somebody does a little happy dance. It's become a bit of a cliché.
Annoyingly, it's also true.
When Olive & Joyce receives an order, I see it. If the same name appears again a few months later, I notice. I recognise customers who've been ordering for years. That individual order doesn't disappear anonymously into an enormous sales figure. It helps buy the next batch of ingredients, pay the website bill, order jars and labels and keep the whole slightly ridiculous machine moving.
Sometimes it contributes to something even more important: confidence.
Because there are days in a micro business when orders are quiet and you start wondering whether everybody has secretly agreed to stop buying skincare without telling you.
Then the ker-ching goes.
And suddenly Sandra from Accounts (Me) is delighted.
Small Doesn't Mean Unsuccessful
Perhaps we've also become so accustomed to measuring businesses by growth that staying small can sound like failing to become big.
More followers. More employees. More products. More stockists. More turnover. Bigger premises. Bigger launches.
Growth can be wonderful, and I want Olive & Joyce to continue growing. But a business doesn't have to become enormous to be successful.
My dad's shop supported our family. It employed people, served its community and had customers who returned. He worked incredibly hard and built something that mattered to the people who used it.
Was that somehow less successful because it didn't become a national chain?
Of course not.
Maybe we've confused scale with success.
Maybe Micro Is the New Small
Perhaps what I grew up thinking of as a small business is now what we'd call a micro business: the butcher, baker, market trader, maker, independent shopkeeper and one-person company where the owner is still woven into almost every part of what you buy.
The technology has changed enormously. My dad had a shop counter. I have Shopify. He relied on people walking through the door. I can make a jar of face cream in Brighton and send it to somebody I've never met hundreds of miles away.
But underneath all that technology, I don't think we're actually so different.
The business and the person running it are still tangled together.
When you buy from Olive & Joyce, there isn't a huge organisation somewhere behind the website. There's me. Making, packing, writing, photographing, answering, worrying, celebrating and occasionally wondering where I've put the parcel tape when it's quite clearly underneath the thing I'm currently holding.
So perhaps Shop Small hasn't completely lost its meaning. Maybe we just need to look a little harder at what we're supporting.
Not because bigger businesses are bad, or because growth is something to be suspicious of, but because there are still thousands of tiny businesses where your £10, £20 or £30 genuinely matters to the person behind them.
My dad had one of those businesses.
Decades later, strangely enough, so do I.
The butcher's counter has become a vegan skincare website, the handwritten order book has become Shopify, and thankfully I no longer run downstairs naked to see the person making the products.
But underneath it all, perhaps small business hasn't changed quite as much as I thought.