10:30am | by Sarah Parvini
Francisco Dominguez has a secret few people know: he’s part of a mob — and he’s proud of it.
Dominguez, 31, is putting a new spin on the term “mob mentality” by organizing the Long Beach cash mob. A riff on “flash mobs,” where people show up and randomly break out into song or dance, cash mobs have a more productive goal.
The concept is simple: After being notified through the cash mob page on Facebook, people meet up, toting their wallets, and “mob” a struggling business, spending a minimum of twenty dollars each in an effort to help local merchants.
“We want to do something honest and real,” Dominguez said. “People often ask me how much I make doing this, and I tell them, ‘nothing.’ We just want to help local businesses thrive.”
Dominguez, who works as an appliance installer when he’s not cash mobbing, started the Long Beach cash mob because he wanted to hone in on the city’s strong sense of community. He said he wanted to find a way to take that positive energy and use it to help others—the cash mob presented him with that opportunity. It has two basic guidelines.
“Rule number one: We’re gonna have fun,” Dominguez said. “Rule number two: No franchises and no chains because they have the financial support of their headquarters.”
For the targeted store, cash mobs are welcome help during difficult times. In February, the Long Beach cash mob hit Leo’s Mexican Grill and filled the entire restaurant, bringing the customer count from two people to about 40. At the end of the event, the receipt was so long it coiled down to the floor.
When the cash mob struck Kress Market, a small grocery store on Pine Avenue, earlier this month, the employees were caught off guard. Unless it’s necessary, the owners and workers are not informed of the mob beforehand.
Mobbers trickled into the store, grabbing almond cheese and fresh berries from the humming refrigerator. Others rifled through plastic cases of mixed nuts or made for the wine rack. “You’ve been cash mobbed,” they told the cashier as they laughed and made their purchases.
“It’s a great way to start the day,” said Elliot Gonzales, who was working the register at Kress Market when the mob hit. “It’s an emotional experience that lets small businesses know that people care. It’s a beautiful thing.”
Business has been rough for Kress, the owners said, especially since the grocery chain Fresh and Easy opened up down the street. The market experienced one of its best sales days because of the cash mob, making about four times as much as they do on an average day, they estimated.
“I’ve been noticing a lot of new people coming since then,” said Hilda Ortiz, who owns Kress Market with her husband, Javier Ortiz.
“The day they came was great,” he interjected. “I think those people are coming back.”
Amanda Vernon, owner of MINDFULnest, an art gallery and gift shop in Burbank, said she saw a significant increase in sales when she was mobbed by the Los Angeles cash mob earlier this year. Unlike the owners of Kress Market, Vernon said she doesn’t think the mob has had lasting effects on her store.
“For any small business, having 15 to 20 people come in at once is a huge plus,” she said. “But as far as long-term effects go, I don’t know that I’ve seen any.”
Economists say cash mobs are part of the crowd-funding phenomenon, where people network and pool their money together to support others. People frequently turn to crowd-funding websites like Kickstarter, a platform for budding projects, to launch their ideas. Experts argue cash mobs could bring this Kickstarter model to the retail realm.
“This is more than just getting a bunch of people together to socialize. This is getting them somewhere to spread the greater good,” said Kathleen Allen, an expert in entrepreneurship and small businesses.
The man behind the cash mob movement is Andrew Samtoy, a lawyer from Cleveland who got the idea last year, after spending time in Europe and witnessing the riots and looting in England that destroyed nearly 2,500 businesses. Stores had their windows bashed and were even set on fire.
Since Samtoy’s first mob hit last November, over 170 cash mobs have popped up throughout the U.S., and they are beginning to spread across the globe.
Although Samtoy came up with the catchy phrase, similar events have popped up before. Most notably, Glenn Beck had a Christmas mob of sorts in Ohio—the birth state of Samtoy’s first cash mob.
In December of 2010, Beck announced he would be hosting a Christmas event in Wilmington—a small town of 12,000 people that had lost 9,500 jobs—to show the proverbial holiday spirit.
“Make Christmas presents for people. Things that my kids would want, or I would want that would remind me of a better time. Something that has value,” Beck said in an announcement on his show. “Will you sell your goods? Because I would like to invite my friends…Maybe we can open up some of the closed store-fronts and we can sell things for Christmas.”
Beck told his viewers he hosted the event because he wanted to spread a feeling of hope during hard times. This idea is akin to Samtoy’s and Dominguez’s cash mobs. Each event seeks to help business owners who could use a boost.
The mobs usually meet on Saturday mornings, but sometimes they give up their weekend evenings to show solidarity and help out a business in need.
On a crisp Friday night in Long Beach, a group of about ten people descended on Elev8, a clothing retailer on Linden Avenue. As they sifted through earrings made of buttons and other knick-knacks, looked at dresses with funky patterns and tried on leopard-print headbands, the mobbers’ presence drew attention—and more customers—to the store.
“It’s a creative way and a great way to support local business, and I think it’s so much better than coupons and things like that,” said Lisa Hernandez, a small business owner who made her contribution by buying her daughter a new dress.
Cash mob participants say that even if the help of the mob is a one-time deal, they hope to support retailers in the long run by giving them new customers and increased business throughout the year.
“We show our appreciation for [small] businesses, not just corporate businesses like Walmart because they’re cheaper,” said Yoshino Jasso, Hernandez’s daughter. “We appreciate that these people want to have a different flavor.”
March 24 was International Cash Mob Day, and from California to Canada, people flooded stores with cash in hand, ready to spend. Dominguez hopes to take it a step further. He is currently working to make a move that would greatly advance cash mobs—he wants to spread them to Central America.
A Honduras native, Dominguez said he has been contacting his family there to start their own cash mob. It would be called the “Lempira Mob,” after the Honduran currency.
Until then, he will continue moonlighting as the head of the Long Beach cash mob, sending his charitable cohorts to independently owned businesses.