Small retail businesses have been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, but many are hoping to get a boost during the holiday shopping season. That starts with Black Friday, of course, but then there's Small Business Saturday, a day introduced in 2010 by American Express as a way to encourage shoppers to think about Mom & Pop stores in their communities, rather than spending all of their holiday cash at big box stores.
AccessWDUN visited three small retailers in the area to see how they've weathered the storm of COVID-19 and to see what they've projected for the 2020 holiday shopping season.
Social media, online sales and personal deliveries
There was a point in the spring and summer when Shannon Faile wasn't sure if she would be able to keep the doors of Image Boutique open. She said she and her staff tried everything to keep business flowing - doing Facebook live videos, daily Instagram posts, online sales and even personal deliveries.
"I was doing deliveries, yeah," Faile said with a laugh. "Anything that was local, I would just take it to their house...we did a lot of deliveries like that. Once things began to open back up a little bit, we did some curbside pickup. Really, we just tried to stay in touch and let them [customers] know we're still here.
Faile said it’s not necessarily about just getting the right look at Image Boutique, but also about comfort. And this holiday shopping season, they mean it in more ways than one.
“We’re trying to be as normal as we can,” said Faile, noting that she and her staff have been diligent about health protocols in the stores.
The boutique has three locations, Athens, Gainesville and their first location in Flowery Branch. Faile said they opened in 2013, so when the pandemic hit, changing the business model temporarily - beyond employees just wearing masks and having temperature checks - was an easy choice.
Image Boutique will have a variety of special sales events for both Black Friday and Small Business Saturday, including rewards for early-bird shoppers and new merchandise for sale on Saturday.
Acting on faith
Dawn Parks opened Upsy-Daisy Boutique on the Downtown Gainesville Square in 2015, so she was looking forward to a big celebration for her five-year anniversary, but the pandemic put a bit of a damper on those plans. She closed her store for five weeks in April and May, believing that she would be able to resume business at some point during the year.
"We still had shipments coming in with no revenue coming in," Parks said. She said they made a few reductions to their orders, but when they re-opened in time for Mother's Day, the customers returned and business was steady through the summer. She made the decision to re-order the same amount of fall and Christmas merchandise that she had in years past.
"We've had customers come in and actually say because Amazon and Target got all their online business during the shutdown period, now they've decided it's time to support locals and their mission is to give nothing for Christmas unless it's local," Parks said. "That really blesses us."
Parks said Upsy-Daisy's very first day of business was on the night of the Jingle Mingle in 2015, an event that has ushered in the shopping season in downtown Gainesville for years. She had thought that Jingle Mingle 2020 would be the perfect night to commemorate five years in business., but the city opted to cancel the event in light of the pandemic. That didn't deter Parks; she and her staff still celebrated the anniversary with an open house and she said they'll have plenty of Christmas spirit for the entire season.
Good products and good customer service
Jane O'Gorman is the general manager of The Fudge Factory on the Historic Dahlonega Square. She said, just like other small businesses, the shop was closed for most of the spring, but they're back on a regular schedule now.
"We slowly opened back up, so now we're back to seven days, and for October, we've been surprised, it's pretty much what October was last year," O'Gorman said.
Keep in mind that downtown Dahlonega is the site of Gold Rush Days every October, one of the biggest fall festivals in the Southeastern U.S. That festival, along with most others in the region, was canceled because of the pandemic, so achieving comparable sales levels for The Fudge Factory this fall has been quite a feat.
O'Gorman said there are no special promotions for Black Friday or Small Business Saturday, but they will keep the store open for extended hours in anticipation of seeing more customers.
"We're going to do what we always do," O'Gorman said. "We give good customer service and we give a good product and we have lots of people that come."
