Shoppers came out in force downtown this Thanksgiving weekend as merchants along the Broad Street corridor celebrated Small Business Saturday with coordinated specials, sales and even a raffle.
The Small Biz Saturday Crawl kicked off at 10 a.m., with buyers encouraged to pick up guides and free tote bags. While the tote bags were only available for the first 200 guests, custom buttons (such as a new Christmas snowflake edition of the famed “Happy” pins) were available throughout the day.
10Twenty-Eight, the city club and professional networking space, saw plenty of traffic in its first Small Business Saturday event since owner Natonia Tillman opened earlier this year, and as one of the participating merchants of the crawl, no less.
As 10Twenty-Eight is, among other things, a space where its members can set up shop, the day proved an opportunity for several entrepreneurs to enjoy uptick in traffic.
Connie Jordan, the owner of Lunar Intentions Candle Co., gave potential customers a chance to concoct their own fragrances out of an array of scents and take home the samples for free. Meanwhile, Felicia Dunn of Glam Factory Boutique wooed passers-by with a sale of her shop’s garments—$15 to $30, a discount that had been going strong all week.
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A little further down the block, Freshwater Design Co., another one of the participating businesses, was also inundated the weekend purchasers. The traffic spilled over to vendor Jeana Berrios, owner of From Us to You, who had a table set up in front of Freshwater Design to sell her ceramic mugs and other high-end gifts.
“I think we’ve had more people through here than we had in previous years,” said David Hutchison, owner of the Book Tavern, for whom this was the first Small Business Saturday event since moving to its new location on 978 Broad St.
The commemoration and celebration of shopping local is not new to downtown merchants, The Book Tavern included. But this year marks the second that Soul City, Augusta’s partnership of downtown Augusta merchants, managed the event.
Through Soul City, about a dozen downtown businesses—including Grantski’s Records, Augusta Candle Company, Field Botanicals and Tire City Potters—participated in organizing and promoting the weekend event this year.
Hutchison attributes the increase in business to the corresponding increase in cooperation, as Soul City has coordinated other projects to help boost local business, such as the Camp Soul City biz crawl this summer.
“I’d say that the the last two small business Saturdays that I’ve had have been so well traffic, the cause of that cooperation with other downtown merchants,” Hutchison said.
Skyler Q. Andrews is a staff reporter covering business for The Augusta Press. Reach him at skyler@theaugustapress.com.
