Local shops look to holidays for extra profits

The holiday shopping season carries with it almost a frenzied atmosphere, with crowds of shoppers willingly enduring chilly conditions to wait in line outside stores in the wee hours of the morning, sometimes for hours, all in the pursuit of saving a few bucks in a troubled economy.
But away from the Black Fridays, the door-busters, the Best Buys and the Walmarts, many local businesses rely on the increased foot traffic of the holiday season to constitute a significant portion of their annual profits.
Morgan Scarborough, owner of Scarborough Lumber, said his local hardware chain did well over Thanksgiving weekend, despite the cold and rainy weather.
Scarborough said that what happens during the holiday season is “people will come in looking for something specific and will stumble across something else they didn’t originally plan on buying.”
He said his Scotts Valley store has an entire section devoted to Christmas decorations. But with many shoppers looking to save a dollar anywhere they can in a rough economy, Scarborough said he’s seen customers more willing to fix up their older holiday decorations this season.
“I’ve seen a lot of people who might have bought the new LED Christmas light strings a few years ago opting to buy replacement bulbs so they can repair and reuse their older strings,” Scarborough said.
Marion Palm, owner of Zinnia’s Home and Garden in Scotts Valley, estimated that she does almost 20 percent of her yearly business between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
“We’re very dependent on the holiday season,” Palm said. “We have to bring out a second register.”
Palm said that though she offered no early-morning Black Friday specials, Zinnia’s regularly attracts customers during the holiday season due to the boutique’s annual Christmas displays.
“A lot of people come from all over the Bay Area to see our winter wonderland,” Palm said.
For many independent retailers, Black Friday is just another day.
“The day before Thanksgiving was like the day before Christmas,” said Clare Campbell, owner of The Outback Trading Co. in Felton. “But the rest of the weekend was like a regular weekend.”
Campbell said the most sought-after items at her store during the holidays and winter months typically are brightly colored rain boots, leather boots, fuzzy socks and sweaters.
“Malls and big stores are what Black Friday and Thanksgiving weekend are about,” Campbell said.
That’s not to say sales don’t increase this time of year, though. In the 13 years she’s owned her store, Campbell said, her sales typically take off as the holiday shopping season progresses.
“December is definitely my busiest month of the year,” Campbell said. “I do almost double (the business) of any other month.”
At Epic Adventure Games in Scotts Valley, owner Dargan Mulhall explained that because his store serves a niche market, he normally doesn’t roll out much of a red carpet during the holiday season.
“Historically, business stays about the same here during the holidays,” Mulhall said.
This year, he said, he’s planning to use the holiday season to expand awareness of the types of card games and board games he offers in his store with a gift fair.
Mulhall said he hopes the fair will draw in some new customers by featuring prizes and free demonstrations of many of the games he sells.
“We’ve got a lot of games many people just don’t know about,” Mulhall said. “When you talk about board games, a lot of people just automatically think of Monopoly and Scrabble.”
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