Shoppers crowd stores for Small Business Saturday

RICHMOND, Va. (WWBT) - Some of us might still be reeling from the craziness that is Black Friday, but today it was Mom and Pop’s chance to get a piece of the holiday shopping pie with Small Business Saturday.

“We definitely want to support the local community and local businesses,” said shopper Natalie Epstein. She was one of the thousands of people who took to Carytown on Saturday morning to shop local.

“Lots of foot traffic, that’s exciting,” said Kimberly Johnson, manager of Bonnie’s Boutique. She says the pandemic may have slowed things down last year, but things were picking up this weekend so far.

“Most people go to the malls on Black Friday, but it looks like it was pretty busy here.”

At the video game store Bits and Pixels, Felicia Gilley says they’ve also seen a steady stream of customers this year.

“I think everyone’s starting to go a little stir crazy after so long. We’ve actually seen a decent amount come in and then flying right back out.”

That’s the case for some shoppers like Natalie Epstein and her boyfriend Louis Douglas, who say they just missed that traditional, offline shopping feel.

“You don’t see the stores like this online. It’s just cool to come out here. There are just different gift shops and stuff like that to check out. You find some unique gifts, it’s always good to shop in person. You have that gift right in hand as opposed to worrying about shipping delays and things like that.”

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