Nov. 11—Valley businesses are gearing up for a holiday buying season in which sales are projected to reach pre-pandemic levels.
In shops along Market Street in Lewisburg there is a sense of optimism about the upcoming Black Friday and Small Business Saturday.
Jadyn Rook, a manager at Jordanna Adams, was quite occupied on Thursday, preparing the shop for a busy Black Friday, and Small Business Saturday followed by the full Christmas buying period.
"We're stocking up," she said Thursday. "We are getting a lot of people looking early for what they might want to buy as Christmas gifts. We are getting a lot of orders in and when they arrive we have to tag them.
"Our owner spends a lot of time looking for stuff because we do a big business on Black Friday and Small Business Saturday," Rook said. On those days, when the store is full of shoppers more staff comes in to help at the register.
"The pandemic really affected things. I think the pandemic was like a rubber band. People pulled back, now they've let go and things have exploded. Yes, people shop online, but we find they also like to go out and shop in stores. I think we are going to be pretty stocked up for the holidays," she said.
Jordanna Adams is bringing in coats and sweaters. The shop is getting boutique items for men here as well for Christmas gifts.
"We get a lot of women shoppers come here with their husbands," Rook said.
A few doors down the street, at Farmhouse Fancy, which offers a wide range of household decorations, Erin Kieffer will be replacing some in-store fall decorations with Christmas holiday decor.
"We offer home decor with pillows, blankets, anything you really need to decorate your house," Kieffer said. "For the season, we'll have all kinds of ornaments, Christmas decorations, Christmas signs, Christmas gifts. We think that once we get closer to Thanksgiving we'll get customers coming in to look for things for Christmas."
Sales projections made by the National Retail Foundation, Deloitte Consulting LLC, and Adobe Analytics all support that optimism felt by local retailers. They all forecast an increase in holiday sales for 2023 by 3 to 4 percent over 2022.
The holiday shopping season seems to start earlier and earlier every year said the the foundation, but now there's a reason.
"They want more time to find deals and they want more time to really shop," said Deloitte Consulting principal Brian McCarthy in his annual retail holiday forecast.
"After several years of uncertainty, we project that shoppers will return to the familiar, plan to frequent their favorite retailers, and focus their shopping during the traditional late fall period," McCarthy said. "With customers planning to shop fewer weeks, retailers have a shorter amount of time to gain consumers' attention, highlighting the importance of the November promotional events this holiday season."