Main Street Sees Boost from Black Friday, Small Business Saturday

Stephanie Torrible hasn't seen her Main Street consignment shop so crowded in the five years it's been open. But customers were packing on Black Friday and Small Business Saturday.

“It was incredible,” she said. “We could not keep up. I had five people working and literally there was a line at the register the whole time and a line for the dressing rooms the whole time.”

The store sold about $5,000 in merchandise during last year’s sale, but netted $20,000 this time around. In two days, the shop sold what it usually sells in two weeks.

As the nation spent an estimated $52.4 billion on Black Friday, according to The Washington Post, Main Street merchants in Reisterstown had stores filled with people looking to spend. The trend lasted through the weekend, too.

owner Lauretta Nagel said her store did $400 in sales Saturday and Sunday, a drastic increase from some “$50 Wednesdays,” she said. The store was hopping on Black Friday as well.

“I did phenomenally well,” she said. “It’s like everyone came out of the woodworks.”

Constellation Books had a fundraiser for library over the weekend, which, along with the warm weather, helped bring in some extra foot traffic.

Just down the street, had a mix of regulars and new customers, and was able to avoid afternoon downtime thanks to a steady crowd.

“I saw a lot of people I had never seen in the shop before,” said Debbie McNamara, who worked on Saturday.

While individual stores ran promotions, there was no collective Black Friday sale on Main Street. Reisterstown Improvement Association President Glenn Barnes said this makes it harder to attract new customers to the area.

“Each merchant is doing their own thing,” he said. “Whatever they choose to do, that’s how they’re doing it.”

Torrible, who is at the north end of Main Street by the Route 30/140 split, said her location makes it hard for her shop to benefit from Main Street efforts like parades and other events.

McNamara thinks businesses just need to work together and promote each other. For example, the coffee shop’s owner, Carrie Gorham, is trying to get together a trivia night and involve other businesses, McNamara said.

Barnes thinks Main Street merchants should market and advertise together to draw people to the area.

While Nagel sees the benefits of promotions and events at her own shop, she thinks educating the public goes a long way, and that’s why small business Saturday made an impact.

“Having it in the news and in the media has helped even more, because now people are talking about the philosophy of shopping independent and shopping small and how the money stays in the economy and how it helps create jobs,” she said.