Small retailers capitalized on strengths

NEW YORK — Independent retailers who’ve had a successful holiday season say they took advantage of the fact that there are strengths in not being huge.

Store owners report they were able to change pricing and other strategies quickly. Many offered customers more personal service and a warmer atmosphere. And they said they used social media tools designed for smaller companies, including inexpensive ads on Facebook.

How successful the season was for the retail industry as a whole won’t be known until figures from market researchers and the government arrive in January. And after-Christmas business can make a difference.

Bekka Palmer, who sells baskets, tote bags and jewelry in New York, says she sold at pop-up markets where shoppers gave her feedback that let her know she’s on the right track.

Jon Abt says his appliance and furniture store held its own this holiday season, up against competition like Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy and more, by capitalizing on advantages it has over the big guys.

Abt offers free technical support for the life of a product and some free delivery. The store, in the Chicago suburb of Glenview, is designed to be entertaining — offering chocolate chip cookies, a Santa every weekend during the holidays, and an aquarium in the store yearround giving customers and their families an experience that goes beyond shopping for a TV.

“You’ve got to have a good price but you’ve also got to present some compelling reasons for why someone should buy from you,” said Abt, who said sales were up about 15 percent from the 2016 holiday season.

Individual retailers including small and independent merchants already have a sense of how they’ve done, and what worked for them.

Palmer’s baskets, tote bags and jewelry sold better than she expected because she made sure she got publicity. Palmer, owner of the online retailer Closed Mondays, met an editor of Domino, a magazine and website that publishes a holiday gift guide, and that bit of networking led to several of her creations being featured on Domino. She also approached New York magazine and a website called Design Milk and got mentions.

People browsing the online gift guides and then deciding to buy gave Palmer nearly a quarter of her sales from mid-November until mid-December, when she processed her last orders before Christmas.

“I was so much busier than I was last year,” says Palmer, who lives and runs her business in Brooklyn, New York.

Palmer timed her outreach to gift guides better this year. In 2016, she contacted websites too late to be included. This year, she got in touch with them sooner.

“Many of our customers this year were specifically looking for things made in the U.S.A.,” she says.

This was the first holiday season for Garrett Ryan and Clark Passino, who started their online men’s underwear company, Mr & Muse, in January. Sales have been better than expected after the partners used social media throughout the year to build their customer base. As they launched the Clarendon Hills, Illinois-based business, they began advertising on Facebook where they could inexpensively test their marketing campaign.

“We literally spent $20 a week on five different ads, picked one or two that worked, and the next week spent $30 on five different ads with that image,” Ryan says. “We continued pouring more money into ad types, copy and images that work.”

They also invested in tracking the products potential customers look at, and then showing them the same products in other websites or apps, helping some shoppers decide to buy.