Clarendon Merchants are calling last week’s Black Friday promotion a success with several local businesses reporting heavy traffic in their stores.
The day after Thanksgiving is traditionally a busy day for national retailers, but this year local businesses worked hard to attract attention to their services. They also sought to capitalize on Small Business Saturday, a national effort led by American Express to get people to support small businesses across the country.
Terri Floyd at Every Nook & Cranny told the Enterprise that she had her best day Friday since she has been in business.
“Friday was awesome for us,” Floyd said. “It was a record day, and we had quite a few people here from out of town.”
Floyd said one lady from Howardwick did all of her Christmas shopping in Every Nook & Cranny.
She also said that television time purchased by the Clarendon Merchants Association had paid off. A woman who had seen the merchants’ commercial stopped in the Nook on Wednesday and said she never realized how many shops Clarendon had available even though she comes through town frequently as a driver for FedEx.
As a Radio Shack dealer, Bill Stavenhagen at Stavenhagen Video said he benefited from national advertising in addition to local ads that his store ran and regional ads placed by the Clarendon Merchants Association.
“Sales were up by a third from Black Friday last year,” Stavenhagen said. “I think having the whole town participating helped me. I had people come in at 6:15 Friday morning.”
Stavenhagen said he sold a TomTom navigation system to a man just passing through town about 7 a.m. based on national Radio Shack ads, and he also got business from Facebook after a Clarendon woman, April Yankie, posted on her page that he had a great sale going on.
“I had two people come in my store from that,” he said.
Cornell’s Country Store also had a good day Friday and said they ran 25 percent more tickets than they did the year before.
“We were really, really busy,” Deanna Cornell said. “Lay away was way up this year, and we had a lot of phone calls coming in also.”
Cornells said they had several sales come in from traffic on the highway, and they had a lot of business from hunters on Saturday.
Most merchants said Small Business Saturday was not as good as Friday, but they were still busy. Everyone appreciates the support that they received from shoppers over the two-day period.
Local shoppers also benefitted from finding good deals all over town.
All the merchants interviewed by the Enterprise said they intend to continue the Black Friday and Small Business Saturday promotion next year.
Clarendon merchants continue to be interested in your business and will continue to have sales and promotions through the holiday season. Watch the pages of the Enterprise for ongoing specials.
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