Small businesses struggle as holiday shopping weekend misses the mark

Click here for updates on this story

    SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KOVR) — Tracking traffic through small businesses has never been more important as local shops struggle to stay open.

“It would break my heart, I would lose my job. I mean I have a family to take care of,” said Jocelyn Sahlman.

Sahlman works at Shop Old Gold. The downtown Sacramento business took a hard hit during the pandemic, only bringing in half the revenue it usually does. Like many small local businesses, they banked on the Small Business Saturday tradition to keep them afloat. But this year’s big shopping day only pulled in half the sales it did last year.

Sahlman is still grateful for the local support.

“A lot of that this weekend, so a lot of early shoppers which is great. It’s just the support has been so amazing. People have been so kind, so supportive,” said Sahlman.

That’s not surprising. According to Adobe Analytics, 51% of shoppers said they would support small businesses on the big Thanksgiving shopping weekend.

“I noticed a lot of people came into the store and it was really encouraging to see,” said Teaonna Little. “A lot of businesses are going out of business so if you can shop locally, you definitely should.”

“It just makes me feel better knowing that I could be putting my money in those small businesses so I think it is more important when they’re most vulnerable,” said Belen Hernandez.

There is some good news as 38% of consumers plan to continue shopping local throughout the holiday season. That’s welcome news for Sahlman.

“I think it’s so important for the local economy to go out and support local artists, local things, local restaurants, everything that you can because you need to put that in your own community to support each other so we can survive,” said Sahlman.

Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.