By creating a festive atmosphere to attract holiday shoppers, small businesses in Souderton and Skippack prepare for the holiday season by decorating their stores and hosting seasonal events.
Each year, Silver Orchid Photography hosts a holiday photo experience called Cool Yule, featuring refreshments, live reindeer and Santa Claus.
According to Silver Orchid Photography owner Tara Lynn, the event requires a significant amount of preparation.
“Families have made this their yearly holiday tradition,” Lynn said. “This event takes a year to plan and reaches about 1,000 families.”
Down the street, the Skippack Sweet Spot puts together gift baskets and boxes filled with custom-made chocolate treats to spread holiday cheer.
Sweet Spot manager Abigail Harper said preparations include “trying to get the word out” that they are taking orders by posting on social media.
In Souderton, Art on the Hill owner Joanne Fabian ensures that artists make enough seasonal art pieces to sell at her gallery. “They’re hand painting, hand drawing and hand creating, so they have to have a lot of stock ready to go for the holidays,” Fabian said.
Souderton is also known for its Holiday Parade, which travels along Main Street on the first Saturday of December.
“I get to watch it in between waiting on people and our parade is awesome,” Fabian said. “People put blankets and chairs to make sure they save their favorite spot.”
Souderton Family Restaurant owner Carol Reckner also looks forward to the parade. The event manages to attract some more customers in addition to their regular clientele.
On Black Friday, Skippack hosts its annual tree lighting at Floral & Hardy. According to Harper, this is a huge event where the community comes together and businesses perform well.
“Families go down to the Christmas tree lighting, then they come here afterwards and we have hot apple cider and cookies,” The Copper Partridge owner Deb Knight said.
By participating in holiday events, small businesses find ways to make shopping fun. They strive to give customers a memorable shopping experience.
“Competing with malls and Amazon and all the big box stores, you have to have something that differentiates you from them,” Knight said.
Many shoppers take advantage of Black Friday to start buying gifts for their loved ones.
While most of these businesses experience a surge in customers on Black Friday, they find even more success the following day, on Small Business Saturday.
According to Love Obsessed owner Stacy Palmerio, Small Business Saturday is “actually busier for us.”
Some of the boutique’s preparations include ordering giveaway and promotional items for that Saturday.
At times, working during the holiday season can be stressful because of the increased number of customers. Some end up working longer hours or coming in on their days off.
“It gets exhausting because it’s every single day and it’s very, very busy,” Knight said. “It’s great, but I’m worn out by Christmas Day.”
Despite the high demand around this time of year, the local business owners agree that making customers happy is a very rewarding feeling.
For Fabian and Palmerio, their favorite part of the holiday season is seeing customers’ excitement when they enter their stores.
“I love seeing the smile on people’s faces when we do custom chocolate for them and they’re like, ‘oh my gosh, this is perfect,’” Harper said.