Local holiday sales better than expected
The COVID-19 pandemic didn’t stop locals from coming out in full force to support small business this holiday season with most retailers reporting better sales this year than in years past.
“Holiday sales this year were absolutely amazing,” said Jeana McClendon, owner of Main Street Gift Co. in Ferndale. “You could tell that people were really doing their best to spend their money locally and support local business and it was completely amazing and just overwhelming.”
While Deloitte, a multinational professional services company, projected in late October that “nearly 51% of holiday shoppers (felt) anxious about shopping in-store, and 64% of the holiday budget (was) expected to be spent online,” local retailers said their shoppers said the exact opposite.
Several Humboldt County retailers reported their sales for this holiday season were more robust than they were expecting and that locals were the driving force behind making this one of their best holiday seasons. Puzzles have been a popular item to buy throughout the pandemic and that remained true for the holidays, retailers said.
“We couldn’t keep them in stock,” said Jennifer McFadden, co-owner of the Booklegger in Eureka. “We were reordering constantly and the companies that make jigsaw puzzles were running out of stock and having to reprint quickly.”
Another huge seller at the Booklegger were local books, such as the “Hiking Humboldt” guide books and other guide books on local birds and fungi, McFadden said.
In general, shoppers weren’t looking for anything too specific this year and seemed more interested in putting together gifts based on what was available in the shop, McClendon said.
Julie Kreitzer, owner of Golden Gait Mercantile in Ferndale, said she doubled her inventory for the holidays to take care of more shoppers’ needs and offered people a variety of ways to shop and get their gifts, which paid off.
“The combination of generating online sales, free deliveries every day, curbside pickup, as well as in- store shopping at limited capacity, it really worked out well,” Kreitzer said. “So we did a little bit better than last year.”
Cheyenne Bailey, a longtime employee of gift shops Trinidad Trading Co and Windansea, said things were different in Trinidad than in years past with fewer tourists and fewer last-minute purchases.
“In other years, we’ve gotten more tourists because people are visiting their families for Christmas and people like coming here because it’s a beautiful place,” Bailey said. “But I’d say there were less people visiting their families here so I saw more locals that were coming in to mail gifts to their family members who would otherwise be visiting.”
People were generous with their donations, too, at least doubling the number of toys they donated to Toys for Tots compared to previous years, said Michelle Metaxas, owner of the Toy Box in Eureka.
“We had the most donations that we’ve ever seen,” Metaxas said.
Metaxas said she could see that there would be a lot of local support for small businesses in November.
“People just seem to be really into local shopping,” Metaxas said. “We constantly heard, ‘ This year we decided we weren’t buying anything online,’ and it made a big difference.”