LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (Arkansas Business) - Jeff Hankins, Arkansas Business publisher, stopped by the THV Information Center to give us a full report on the weekend's local shopping.
Little Rock retailers reported high spirits among holiday shoppers during the four-day holiday weekend starting on Thanksgiving Day, despite rainy weather and a key Razorbacks football game that kept some shoppers at home.
And while a record number of shoppers visited larger national retailers and websites during the weekend, smaller retailers saw their share of traffic thanks to Small Business Saturday, a national marketing campaign by American Express that encouraged buying from local shops.
Heather Smith, president of the Heights Merchants Association and owner of Eggshells Kitchen Co., said post-Thanksgiving shopping "went very, very well," though she noted that rain on Saturday kept some people away.
"Everybody was mentioning the fact that they were specifically making an effort to shop local," she said.
Lu Smith, the contact for the Hillcrest Merchants Association and co-owner of the Shoppes on Woodlawn, said the local shopping initiative and after-holiday traffic "went very well."
"We had a really good weekend," Smith said. "We felt real good about the holiday season."
Asked whether the shop local initiative had any effect, she said, "Well, I don't know for sure, but I do know this, that a lot of people who walked in said they were shopping local small businesses, but they were also customers of ours."
"Up -- tremendously up," is how Paris Henderson, director of sales for Roberson's Fine Jewelry in Pleasant Ridge, described sales numbers Thanksgiving weekend.
Roberson's didn't offer any special Black Friday promotions, but Henderson said clients chose Saturday to shop locally, and sales figures got a 23 percent boost Friday above last year's Black Friday, and Saturday saw a 30 percent increase over last year.
Henderson credited the sales increases to growing Facebook traffic for Roberson, as well as Small Business Saturday.
The Razorbacks Effect
Greg Bonner, owner and "chief elf" of the Heights Toy Center, said his customers were "upbeat" this year and said weekend shopping went well. He added that the Razorbacks' football game again LSU, which took place Friday afternoon, kept some shoppers away, as did the rainy Saturday.
"Saturday was very good also," Bonner said. "Weather sort of deterred a lot of people. But I had more than one customer - which I didn't know, new people - say, 'We came here because we wanted to shop small today.' I think it resonated with a lot of folks."
"It seems that people are noticing the little stores more this year, or maybe it's more talked about," he said.
Leslie Nelson, manager of Box Turtle in Hillcrest, said Saturday "was a good day with lots of traffic." She agreed that the shop local initiative was effective. "This weekend was really the kickoff of [the holiday shopping season], so we can't really tell yet, but it was a good first weekend of the season."
Laura Stanley of Stanley Jewelers in North Little Rock also said business was good. Stanley said the mall and big box events on Black Friday tend to mean that not as many customers come to smaller stores like hers right after the Thanksgiving holiday, but, nevertheless, "we had quite a few people come in for the Small Business Saturday, so it was a good thing."
Stanley said business "had been very good in general. It's been very strong for Christmas."
Midnight Madness
This year's Black Friday shopping weekend saw more stores -- mainly national chains -- opening at midnight.
At McCain Mall in North Little Rock, shoppers waited to be the first inside stores like Bath & Body Works, Victoria's Secret, The Buckle, Rue 21 and Hot Topic, according to Lisa Meyer, the mall's director of marketing and business development.
"Traffic was unbelievable at midnight," she said. And that traffic prompted other stores scheduled to open at 4 a.m. to open as much as an hour earlier to accommodate shoppers already in the building.
Not So Big
Other local retailers were less than pleased with their results. Jeanne Johansson, owner of Scarlet Boutique & Salon in Little Rock's Pleasant Ridge Town Center, said Black Friday sales at her upscale women's clothing, shoes and accessories shop were down from last year.
Sales dropped, despite an unusual special for Scarlet's Facebook fans that allowed Friday shoppers to buy one item and get a second item of equal or lesser value for half off.
"Compared to years in the past, we didn't have a good Black Friday," Johansson said, due to bad weather and the Razorbacks game.
But she said that Saturday was better, with sales up about 20 percent from a typical busy December shopping day.
Meanwhile, a pair of menswear stores reported what appeared to be moderate gains during the weekend. Mark Carroll, owner of Mr. Wicks in Little Rock, said the store had two good days, but he won't know until later in the week if sales were up over last year's Black Friday.
"We have bigger days in December," Carroll said, adding that Black Friday sales are mainly for big box retailers, not for the specialty shops like his.
Randy Owens, manager at Greenhaw's Men's Wear of Little Rock, also said Black Friday is "not a big deal" for his store. While sales were "up a little bit" over last year, having a Razorbacks game on Friday "kills our business."
National Sales
According to early estimates by The National Retail Federation released on Sunday, a record 226 million shoppers visited stores and websites during the four-day holiday weekend starting on Thanksgiving Day, up from 212 million last year.
Americans spent more, too: The average holiday shopper spent $398.62 over the weekend, up from $365.34 a year ago.
Michael Pakko, the chief economist for the Institute for Economic Advancement at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, noted that his year's sales gains might have come from some stores opening on Thanksgiving night.
"The organizations that track shopping trends are reporting that it is a record year. But with stores open Thursday night, comparisons with previous years might be distorted," he said.
Black Friday sales were $11.4 billion, up 7 percent, or nearly $1 billion from the same day last year, according to a report by ShopperTrak, which gathers data from 25,000 outlets across the country.
It was the largest amount ever spent on that day and the biggest year-over-year increase since 2007. Additionally, customer counts climbed 5.1 percent that day compared with a year ago.
Online shopping on Black Friday was especially strong. Research firm comScore reported on Sunday that online spending jumped 26 percent on Black Friday to $816 million, compared with $648 million on the same day a year ago.
Pakko said those strong numbers carry a downside for Arkansas.
"By all accounts, Internet shopping continues to grow in popularity," he said. "This trend is likely to lower the state's sales and use tax receipts relative to total shopping activity."
Overall, holiday spending is expected to grow by a modest 2.8 percent to about $466 billion, according to the NRF. A fuller picture on spending will come Thursday when major retailers report their November sales figures.
(Copyright 2011 Arkansas Business and KTHV)