WICHITA COUNTY (KFDX/KJTL) — The holiday season is well underway, with Thanksgiving now in the rearview and Christmas just over the horizon. For many, that means it’s time to shop.
But with inflation still impacting Texoma and the price of goods at record highs, how did local businesses make out this Black Friday and Small Business Saturday?
“It turned out really well,” Janet Ehling, co-owner of the Fashion Garage said. “We were busier on Friday than we had anticipated, and we love that, and we saw people choosing to shop with us and buy more unique items than they would at the bigger box stores.”
Ehling and Connie Bennett run the vintage resale shop in Downtown Wichita Falls, and they said the turnout means everything to them.
“We don’t take it lightly,” Ehling said. “We give a hoot about you coming here, I mean this means the world to us, so for you to choose us, we’re very aware that you are spending your hard earned money here.”
Other downtown business owners shared that sentiment. Julie Sobczak, the owner of the Alley Cat, said they saw “record-smashing sales” over the massive shopping weekend.
But downtown businesses weren’t the only ones raking in Black Friday cash.
Bill Lemmon owns Warbonnet Records, a new and used record shop on Kemp, and he says they saw tons of sales over the weekend, too.
“Oh we had a fantastic Black Friday, sales were easily the best, it was easily the best day of the year so we were very pleased,” Lemmon said. “We had a good Small Business Saturday, I think the rain slowed it down a little bit but sales overall were really, really good.”
Lemmon said there was already a line at the door on Friday when he came to open up shop, and the sales made over the weekend do a lot for his business.
“Black Friday weekend is so important for us,” Lemmon said. “It probably close to a month’s worth of sales in two days, so it’s a really big deal.”
Lemmon said he hopes for some decent numbers from online sales from Cyber Monday as well in his online store. However, some local online retailers said they didn’t see as big of a weekend as brick-and-mortar stores.
Falcon Hinchey, co-owner of a local online retailer Long Shadow Co., said they saw a dip from this weekend last year too.
According to Falcon, her website traffic was down 32 percent this year compared to last. She said Long Shadow saw about 30 percent fewer sales than in 2021. And while the conversion rate of visitors to customers was about the same, she said customers spent about 24 percent less this year.
Chelsy Campos also runs an online local store. Her company, One Grand Adventure, sells one-of-a-kind dolls. She said her online sales took a hit in 2022 as well.
“In previous years I had a lot of sales,” Campos said. “This year was definitely a decrease. Still better than regular days and stuff, but definitely not as good.”
For business owners like Campos, a stay-at-home mom to three kids, those sales don’t just keep her in business. They help her provide for her family.
“When I do sales, I work really hard for a long period of time just for those sales, so it really helps us out.,” Campos said.
With less than a month until Christmas Day, time is running out to make your holiday purchases. You could shop anywhere, but these business owners are asking Texomans to think local first.
“Small businesses are their neighbors, are their friends, are their friend’s friends,” Ehling said. “People are really realizing the connection of [shopping local]. They know the service is gonna be better, they know the money stays local and I think it’s just a more unique experience.”