The holiday shopping season is critical to the vitality of small local businesses. For many small shops, a good holiday season means being able to keep the lights on and their doors open in the slow shopping season after New Year’s.
Recently, shoppers have numerous convenient options and with big retailers. A report from the National Retail Foundation found that a total of 129.5 million consumers shopped in-store while 134.9 million consumers shopped online over this year’s Thanksgiving weekend.
Small shop owners like Sarah Simiele from the Curd Nerd in Eastwood believe small local businesses can offer customers more.
“As much as we're selling product, we also sell ourselves. Everyone on our team are so integral to this location. And that's small business. It's coming in to learn about who's behind the counter,” said Simiele.
Experts in marketing and economics, such as Sunderesh Heragu, Regents Professor and John Hendricks chair at Oklahoma State University suggest certain items like “locally sourced, locally produced, one-of-a-kind-artifacts have a competitive advantage during the holiday season”.
At Rocco Leone’s vintage store, Salt City Wearhouse, in the Heart of Syracuse Collective, he curates true Americana vintage from the 40s to the 90s. He said he values shopping in person, particularly with clothes, because of all of the unknowns of browsing items online.
“I just want people to come shop here. I want people to look at the items here and try them on and feel them. Instead of offshoring them,” says Leone.
Rocco’s clothes are often one-of-a-kind artifacts with their own stories.
That's similar to Allison Ferris’ products at her shop, Ferris Lite. Allison stocks her shelves with products from women-owned or queer-owned US companies at her spot above Salt City Wearhouse in the Heart of Syracuse collective.
“They could just go to Target and grab a $20 candle there. You can come here and smell something that came from North Hollywood and was hand poured by a Latina woman,” Ferris said.
Allison’s shop is stocked with unique products and gifts, all of which she said she has tried herself, so she is informed when talking with her customers.
Heragu said she believes the trend towards online shopping points to a larger issue around the vitality of shopping in downtown streets and villages.
“If it's not on life support now, it seems like it will be in the not-too-distant future because the trend towards online shopping is increasing over time,” he warns.
Sarah at the Curd Nerd said she has one request for her community members.
“We've all had a really rough year that's going to make or break a lot of your favorite small businesses," she added. So, if you can put that $20 towards your local shop instead of towards one of the big guys, please think about it.”
Holiday shoppers are critical to small local businesses during this time of year. Some small business owners said they make as much as 80% of their yearly profit in the two months surrounding the holidays.