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Downtown Holland businesses see holiday sale success

Despite financial stress during the COVID-19 pandemic, small shops in downtown Holland say they saw more sales than expected.

HOLLAND, Mich. —  Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday are widely known dates for customers to find doorbuster deals, just in time for the rest of the holiday season. 

Despite financial stress during the COVID-19 pandemic, small shops in downtown Holland say they saw more sales than expected.

"Our sales were comparable to last year, which I consider amazing," Sarah Schipper Russell, manager of The Bridge Fair Trade Gifts and Crafts, said.

The Bridge is Holland's only Fair Trade store, which Russell explained means it doesn't host many sales. However, over the holiday weekend, the store offered 10% off select products.

"That's one of the premises of fair trade is people are paid a fair wage…I feel like we charge a fair price here," Russell said.

Other shops like HOM by Benchmark said it started the holiday sales earlier than usual and had a crowd to match.

"People have been really devoted to the stores in downtown Holland," store manager, Deb Thayer said.

HOM by Benchmark will have deals continuing into the winter season, currently offering 10-20% off select Christmas items.

Alisha Guy, shop manager for Onalee's in downtown Holland, said revenue from this holiday's sales didn't match year's past. However, the team got "creative" in finding ways to capitalize on the online-shopping frenzy.

"We had done our black Friday deals through like Facebook live events, like the doorbusters, just to alleviate some of that really heavy traffic in the store," Guy said, adding that the shop is currently offering 10% off select products for Cyber Monday.

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Onalee's and The Bridge said they are excited to participate in Downtown Holland's 12 Days of Christmas event, which could bring more traffic to local shops.

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"We’re always so happy to participate in those and it's really great that they organize those events for us, just to promote shopping locally," Guy said.

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