Nancy Jervey stood up a sign on a Skowhegan sidewalk Friday, a call to shoppers at the start of what she hopes will be a successful holiday season.
“Last year, sales were really, really good,” Jervey said as stood amid her pottery display at River Roads Artisans Gallery. “We’re hoping the same will be true this year.”
While Black Friday draws millions of shoppers to stores nationwide, many Maine communities are promoting Small Business Saturday or in places like Skowhegan, the spirit of shopping locally for a week or more.
The Brunswick Downtown Association is highlighting sales and giveaways at local stores, including deals on pet food, CBD, sports apparel and chocolate.
In the Waterville area, the Mid-Maine Chamber of Commerce has partnered with radio station Mix 107.9 to promote local businesses that run the gamut from pubs and pizza shops to book stores and jewelers.
And in Caribou, shoppers have a chance to win a $1,000 Caribou Shopping Spree if they visit a series of local businesses and enter a drawing, according to the Maine Office of Tourism.
The Penobscot Bay Regional Chamber of Commerce, which represents businesses in the Camden/Rockland region, doesn’t focus specifically on Saturday, but each town hosts winter festivals around the holidays to draw shoppers downtown, said Eric Belley, chamber president and CEO.
In addition, they recently launched an initiative called “Keep the Cheer Here” to encourage people to shop locally.
“We work really hard year-round to promote keeping our money locally,” he said.
In Skowhegan, the idea to stretch Small Business Saturday into a weeklong event started in 2020, the first year the COVID-19 pandemic impacted holiday shopping, Kristina Cannon, executive director of Main Street Skowhegan, said.
At that time, some of the small local stores faced capacity limits, so it made sense to encourage shoppers to come throughout the week following Thanksgiving to prevent overcrowding.
The idea stuck and today, Skowhegan shoppers can pick up one of 600 booklets in nearly three dozen shops around town to get gift ideas and see where they might find a good deal, she said.
“It’s super important if money is tight, if you are going to choose between a big box store or shop locally, it makes sense to shop local every day,” Cannon said.
For Jervey and the 34 other artisans who sell their wares at the gallery on Water Street, it’s also a chance to give back. Throughout the store, which sells jewelry, cutting boards, wooden toys, scenic photos and more, if items with special tags are sold, all of the money goes to Hospice Volunteers of Somerset County, Jervey said.
While the shop does well during the summer tourist season, Jervey said they rely on locals this time of year for support. And while she’s a bit worried that inflation may dampen sales this year, she said the community has always been supportive of the downtown gallery.
Despite inflation, the National Retail Federation is predicting a record 166 million people will shop through Cyber Monday.
“While there is much speculation about inflation’s impact on consumer behavior, our data tells us that this Thanksgiving holiday weekend will see robust store traffic with a record number of shoppers taking advantage of value pricing,” Matthew Shay, NRF President and CEO, said in a statement.
The projections show Black Friday will be the biggest day of the five-day period with nearly 115 million shoppers, followed by Cyber Monday with 64 million, Small Business Saturday with 60.4 million, Thanksgiving Day with about 32 million and Sunday with 31.4 million.
In the Camden/Rockland area, where summer tourists swell the population by 30,000, most shops make their money during tourist season, Belley said. When October hits, it can be hard for small local shops, he said.
“Mainers are a hardy bunch and they find a way to make it work,” he said.
