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Small Business Saturday kicked off the holiday shopping season for many locally owned retailers. These stores aren?t typically involved in the Black Friday frenzy the way box stores and larger retailers are.
Most Lubbock small businesses reported increased traffic last Saturday.
For many of them, the Saturday after Thanksgiving, which has been promoted as Small Business Saturday for the past three years, officially begins the holiday shopping season.
According to information provided by the U.S. Small Business Association, 78 percent of small businesses believe there is a growing appreciation of shopping locally.
Kandice Matsler, owner of Calligraphy Etc., said the day was especially good for her.
?Black Friday was about the same as any other day. I think most people were out at the box stores with all of the sales that were going on,? said Matsler, ?but Saturday was great.?
This year, Matsler noticed an increase in people shopping to show support of Small Business Saturday.
?We had a lot of our regular customers who dropped in to say hi and make a purchase, even if it was something small, just to show their appreciation.? Matsler said.
Overall, Calligraphy, Etc. sales have been steady, according to Matsler. ?It is early enough in the season that there is still time for customers to purchase things to be personalized, we saw a lot of that.? Matsler said.
Cardinal?s Sports Center manager Bradley Whitworth said that Black Friday shopping was about the same as last year, but traffic in the store was a little slower over the weekend.
?With Tech playing out of town Thanksgiving weekend, we didn?t have as many customers in the store,? said Whitworth. ?Anytime Tech is out of town it hurts retail in Lubbock.?
Over the past week, however, sales have increased. ?This past week has been busier than this time last year, and it will just continue to get busier the closer to Christmas we get.? Whitworth said.
J Hoffmans manager Dawn Garza said that last weekend was ?fantastic for the store. We had great numbers and were much busier than normal.?
Garza said that J Hoffmans has seen an overall increase in sales, and it seems like traffic through the store has picked up earlier than normal this year.
Weekend traffic increased at the Gourmet Pantry as well, according to store manager Kari Halldorson. ?The weekend was great. We had a lot of people in,? said Halldorson.
Halldorson though that the promotion of small business Saturday seemed to help.
?Black Friday is hard, people are usually focused on the larger retailers,? Halldorson said, ?our sales were about the same as last year, maybe a little better. But we really saw an increase Saturday.?
Malouf?s manager Tom Collins said ?Our type of store doesn?t usually have a big Thanksgiving business, and a lot of our clients went to the Tech game, but we had quite a bit of out of town traffic.?
Sales have continued to increase over the last week at Malouf?s, Collins said.
D Vine Wine general manager Pamela Parker said sales at her store were a little slower than normal.
?It was kind of surprising. But overall sales have been good this year. We are on track to equal last year?s sales, and we had an amazing year last year,? Parker said.
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