Despite the wet weather, business owners participating in Shop Small Saturday across Minden say it was a successful day.
Many say a steady stream of customers came through their doors shopping for the perfect Christmas gifts. Chris LaBrie, a cashier at TG Garden and Gifts, says gift bags were given out to customers who shopped at their store, with items related to Shop Small Saturday.
“We’ve been steady today,” he said. “It hasn’t been absolutely packed, but we’ve had a good bit of traffic in here. We’ve sold a lot of stuff.”
He says their biggest seller Saturday were candles.
Paige Salas, owner of Beyond the Alley Boutique says she participated in Shop Small Saturday because it’s a great way to be involved in her community.
“It’s great for our community because it brings local people into local businesses, and it doesn’t just help us out as a business, but our community in general,” she said.
Salas says she will participate next year and hopes that more of the community will get behind the Shop Small Saturday promotion.
“This is our first time to participate,” she says, adding that she is a member of the Minden-South Webster Chamber of Commerce. “Thanks to the chamber, they’ve helped us out a lot.”
The chamber provided promotional materials to advertise her business and promote Shop Small Saturday, she says. She says she would like see the promotion for Shop Small Saturday begin earlier, including the addition of more signs throughout the area of participating businesses.
“That way when people are driving by, they can see them to shop the local businesses in town, and maybe do a month-long campaign beforehand,” she said.
Tammy Eaton of Bobbies Hobbies, says the Downtown Business Association helped promote Shop Small Saturday as well. Bobbies Hobbies has participated for the last four years, she said.
“This year we decided we (Elaine Eaton and Catherine Hunt) needed to get more of the downtown businesses included,” she said. “I think maybe this year, since we did an event, we got more exposure for Minden and got more businesses involved. Hopefully we can model Shreveport for next year. We want to make it more of an annual event, not make it a sale, but more of a community event.”
She says she would like to coordinate with the chamber as well, and hopes it will be bigger and better next year.
“We have a lot of ideas, and we just have to get people together,” she said. “There’s a lot of ideas that we didn’t have time to do this year.”