Few things about 2020 have been typical, including the holiday shopping season, but Southeast Texas families and businesses are adapting to the circumstances.
For Nancy Bedair of Lumberton, online shopping has been the key to getting her children and grandchildren the right presents.
She said she has long used online retailers, even before the pandemic, but it was an important tool for her this year in order to avoid any extra risks to her health.
“For me, it was easier a long time ago before COVID, but in light of the pandemic and the rising cases, I wouldn’t want to be out there shopping,” she said. “It would bother me, because I have underlying health conditions.”
The ability to find exactly what someone on her list wants or to buy a gift card to the retailer of their choice has also become more helpful as her grandchildren have gotten older, she said.
This holiday season was going to be different for Bedair and her family, regardless of the pandemic.
This will be the first Thanksgiving and Christmas without Bedair’s husband, Andrew, who died in September.
She said she knew any celebrations this year would be scaled down, with just a few of her small family gathered, but seem to be taking on a new meaning for the family as they focus on what it means to have each other.
“I think the holidays will be more important to us, because this pandemic and everything going on makes your time with your family more important,” she said. “You think you’re going to see everyone around the table, and that may not be the case. It makes you focus on the things that are important.”
Other Southeast Texans have also been taking advantage of early Black Friday deals and online sales, but some are choosing to focus strictly on local businesses.
Tania Drago of Nederland said shopping online wasn’t for her, so she was completing her Christmas list with local shops as an alternative.
“Not a big fan of online shopping, so I’ve already started my Christmas shopping locally!” she said in an online message to the Enterprise. “I (love) all of the small stores and boutiques we have in our area!”
The challenges of reduced capacity in stores and thinner margins for small businesses during the economic impact from the pandemic are also causing small vendors to change up their strategy for the upcoming weekend.
When Vanlam Nguyen first opened Down to Earth in Nederland, her years of working in retail and missing Thanksgiving with her family to prepare for Black Friday influenced her decision not to make her employees go through the same thing.
Instead, Down to Earth has a large sale at its Nederland and Beaumont locations on Small Business Saturday, the Saturday after Thanksgiving, but that too will be a little different this year.
Nguyen has been strict about mask use and occupancy in her stores, both because of state orders and because she can’t risk herself or others near her family possibly introducing the COVID-19 virus in her home.
Her daughter, Adelaide, was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia on her third birthday in 2019, and the family has had to be extremely cautious about possible infections, even before the pandemic.
With one of their largest shopping days around the corner and the possibility of lots of people in the store, the crew at Down to Earth are launching a difficult operation for a small business: a simultaneous online sales event.
Nguyen said there had been lots of talk in previous years about being able to offer online discounts, but — with the pandemic and the help of a new inventory system — this year seemed like the perfect time.
“In years past, we lost sales because we didn’t have the capability to support the sale online,” she said. “This year, we will capture out-of-town sales and can give people an option if they don’t feel comfortable coming in person.”
Down to Earth’s marketing manager will be hard at work Saturday, manning the sales invoices coming into her laptop and grabbing items for the shipments before they wind up in another customer’s basket.
The small apothecary’s efforts to create the same online experiences shoppers have come to expect from retailers is another example of the challenges small businesses have faced during the pandemic and why Black Friday has always traditionally been geared toward big box stores.
Another small business in the Mildred Building, Ella + Scott, will be hosting a Small Business Saturday sale this year instead of a Black Friday sale to greet shoppers looking for local finds and not just the cheapest gift possible.
A few big retailers in Southeast Texas will have Black Friday doorbusters, but most of their sales have been in effect since Nov. 22.
According to a survey published by the National Retail Federation last week, an increasing number of shoppers had already started before the Black Friday sales. At the beginning of this month, 59% of responding shoppers said they had already made gift purchases, which is almost 21% more early shoppers than the survey found 10 years ago.
The NRF also reported earlier this week that shoppers seem to be spending more than they did last year. An early forecast from the trade group expects sales in November and December will increase between 3.6% and 5.2% over last year, which amounts to a possible max of $766.7 billion spent over the two-month period.
If local shoppers still wish to spend that extra gift budget in a store on Black Friday, they will have a few options in Beaumont.
The Beaumont Best Buy will be closed on Thanksgiving, but is opening its doors at 5 a.m. on Black Friday and will be open until 10 p.m. The company started its sales on Sunday but has been emphasizing in-store pickup for online orders during the pandemic.
Academy Sports is also opening its doors at 5 a.m. Friday, featuring sales on bikes, grills, coolers and top athletic lines.
Walmart will be open at 5 a.m. as well, but other stores such as Target and Dick’s Sporting Goods will have a later start at 7 a.m. Friday.
jacob.dick@beaumontenterprise.com
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