After a busy black Friday, shoppers turned their attention to local businesses on Saturday.
Many small businesses across northern Michigan were filled with shoppers on Small Business Saturday.
The Christmas shopping season is officially underway.
Many businesses, including one’s in downtown Traverse City, are entering their busiest time of the year.
9&10’s Taylor Jones was in Traverse City on Saturday talking to shoppers as they hunted for those deals.
“It’s kind of a win. We get to find special things and support local businesses,” says Debbie Dacey, shopper.
With the holidays on the way, the streets of downtown Traverse City were filled with people getting their Christmas shopping started and supporting local businesses on Small Business Saturday.
“We are celebrating Small Business Saturday, so we started with breakfast because that’s a way to support a small business and make ourselves happy, now were just heading down Front Street hitting all of the stores and trying to support local businesses because were very proud to have so many local businesses here,” says Dacey.
Shoppers say they enjoy keeping their business local.
“Down here, these are the people that matter and I’d rather have someone like this getting my money than a larger cooperation. It’s nice to see friendly faces and to be really appreciated. A lot of times when you’re at bigger businesses, you’re just a customer, it doesn’t really matter, but when you’re at these smaller businesses, you’re more of a person,” says Jennifer Polmateer, shopper.
Shoppers appreciate small business’s hard work.
“Small business owners’ work really hard, really hard! They don’t have a big advertising firm to draw from and they don’t have a lot of extra help, so they work very hard. We have to support that,” says Lauri Rowe, shopper.
Small business owners say the big crowds this weekend are a welcome sight to start the Christmas shopping season.
“We like the customers that come in to support the local businesses. It’s not just us, it’s everybody downtown because were all fighting for a little piece of the action and it’s tough every year, it gets tougher, so we have to be on our toes,” says Doug Hickman, small business owner.
© 2023 - 910 Media Group
