Throughout southern New Jersey, local businesses are happy to welcome customers back and help them find unique, high-quality gifts for the holiday shopping season.
Many companies also hope that easing restrictions and people's desire to communicate face-to-face after nearly 19 months will trigger a much-needed financial and social backlash.
More: Shopping in person during this year's holiday? Here are some ways to reduce the risk of COVID
Andrea Marcelle, owner of Maison Marcelle, a French vintage resale boutique in the heart of Haddonfield, said the city and local businesses have spent months preparing for the holidays.
"I think this will be a record season," said Marcel, who is also chairman of the Haddenfield Partnership Marketing Committee. "I can not wait anymore."
"I really think it will be part of the book," she said. "(People) will be able to go out and support small businesses this year. This will be huge."
Danielle Guerriero, president of the Ocean City Center Merchants Association, feels similar. She said she has seen more people shopping locally than in previous years.
"It's really nice to see people not shopping in the mall," she said. "They enter small boutiques and support small businesses."
Shopkeepers in the area discussed two advantages of shopping at a small business rather than a corporate retailer: personal contact and no shipping delays.
"We started to build relationships with people," said Miles Agag, assistant manager of Top Deck Games, a tabletop role-playing and board game store in Hardentown.
Agag said, “It’s fun to hang out with people who like things like you.” “No one hyped Target.”
Manager Mary Beth Iannarella said that since most of the products in the eclectic new cooperative The Shoppes at Medford Mill are handmade by local artisans, there is no need to worry about supply chain issues.
"Most (items) you can't buy anywhere else," she said. "They are either handmade or just local. When all these things are on the cargo ship, come here to shop."
The Shoppes-its suppliers include a pet accessories store, a leather and canvas worker, a romantic and Victorian fashion and homeware boutique, a wooden watch and sunglasses artisan, a custom-made Jersey Coast home decor manufacturer, and A company that owns art and upgrades courses-wants to be part of the community, which is not available in large stores.
"Almost everyone who comes in, one thing they say is,'Medford needs this,'" Iannarella said. She joked that this sentence should be the slogan of the cooperative.
She said that they are also very happy to be able to participate in the large-scale festival celebrations in the town.
"Medford is very lively during the holidays," she said. "They held the Dickens Festival in December. Everyone dressed up like old Dickens (characters) and walked through all the shops. We were very excited and we wanted to roast marshmallows and hot chocolate."
Brandon Hartman, owner of Second Time Books in Lancos Woods, Laurel Hill, responded to how the company failed to support the local community and often caused local stores to close.
He recently read the book "How to Boycott Amazon and Why" published in 2019 and shared his biggest gains.
"You can buy exactly the same things (in local stores) on Amazon and vice versa," Hartman said. "You can get Amazon faster, you can ship it to your home, but Amazon will not host local writer events."
"Amazon will not sponsor local softball teams," he said. "Amazon will not provide gift baskets, and Amazon will not give you suggestions beyond what their algorithm says."
Customers have also begun to prefer better and more reliable products to inferior but cheaper products.
“I do see a lot of people trying to shop locally instead of actually handing over the money to the big stores,” said GiaVonni Velez of the East Coast Calligraphy Stationery in Collinswood, which also offers calligraphy services.
"They started to discover that quality didn't exist because mass production was crazy," she said.
"Some of these stores are like us, Bespoke, Wonder, and all the other stores in Collinswood — it's more like a boutique, more carefully planned," Velez said. "We will not try to be everyone and everyone, but we will try our best to provide you with the best service."
Voting: What is your holiday shopping plan this year?
Diane Rogers, executive director of the Riverfront Renaissance Art Center in the Grastown Arts District in Millville, said that one of the most exciting parts of planning the center’s annual holiday gift shop is that each year there will be a new "giftable art"品" appears.
"You really don't know what you will get," she said. "Every year we may have six to ten new artists bringing things that we have never seen or sold here."
After the small business Saturday, the Glastown district will host the first artist Sunday. Rogers said that during the promotion period, shoppers can get special discounts on unique works by local artists in different galleries and studios in Millville.
The Glasstown Arts District received a grant for the second year in a row, providing double value gift cards for many of its shops and galleries. In other words, if shoppers buy a $100 gift card, they will spend $200.
Rogers of the Gift Card Project said: “It’s really a big help when it’s a bit difficult.” “We found that a lot of works were sold for (the center) and several galleries last year, so this is not helping one person. It helped a lot of artists."
Erica Milbourne, owner of Everything Classie Sweet Soulful Cafe, also located in Millville, said that a simple but meaningful gift is a gift card to a local restaurant, which is also a way to support small businesses.
"Now, although people are thinking about letting me go shopping, let me buy gifts, why not invite the family to dinner?" she said. "It's that simple."
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Mary Ann Kuntz, owner of An Octopus's Garden, said that shopping in a small business not only supports the business, it is a remodeled art and jewelry store that sells more than 100 people from Village on High. The products of local creatives are also in the Glasstown Arts District in Millville.
"When you shop at a local business, you are not only supporting the local business," she said. "I will use (Octopus Garden) as an example: you are supporting 108 local families."
"You are supporting them, their families, and then you are developing your community," she said.
Kuntz also believes that small-scale shopping and establishing contacts with local suppliers are a way to heal from the devastation of the pandemic.
"If you drive by (Millville), it will be sad to see the town," she said. "But this (holiday shopping season) is a good start. I think it will be a good starting point for rebirth and return from COVID, and from the terrible year we experienced."
For local businesses, "our customers are our family," she said.
"We view our success as a small business, and we can get them out of it," she said. "So if we have 27 customers in small businesses on Saturday, I say this is a victory because we had 24 customers last year."
She said: "We define our success by people coming back, they bringing friends, and bringing children in."
According to Yelp's third quarter economic average report, nationwide, more than five-sixths of small businesses that were temporarily closed during the pandemic have reopened.
This means that most locals’ favorites, although they may still be injured and find a foothold, they will come back to help customers get quality, unique and stocked gifts for their friends and relatives this holiday season. After a dark and lonely year, they are also very happy to rekindle their old relationships with customers and establish new bonds.
Small Business Saturdays and other activities that support local businesses in South Jersey:
Aedy Miller reports on education and economics for Burlington County Times, Courier-Post and Daily Journal. They are multimedia journalists from central Jersey and recently graduated from George Washington University.
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