Local Charlottesville businesses are beginning to prepare for Black Friday, one of the biggest shopping days of the year. The day after Thanksgiving is traditionally known for long lines and crowds of customers, but on the Corner, businesses are preparing for a quieter atmosphere and more navigable traffic that draws customers.
Students make up a considerable portion of the customer base for businesses on the Corner during a typical week. During Thanksgiving break, however, many students leave Grounds and shops see a shift in their customer base.
“I think when students are gone our customer base just changes a little bit,” Duo Boutique owner Greer Johnson said. “We still have people out shopping but it’s people who live in town who use the opportunity when the Corner is slower to come out and shop in the stores that they love.”
Mountain Running Shop co-owner Mark Lorenzoni said he sees a lot of families and local residents shop during this time.
“We do great when [the students] are here, but then the business has kind of a cool little symmetry to it. When [students] go away, we see a lot of townspeople,” Lorenzoni said.
In the tradition of Black Friday, many stores have large sales to attract customers and anticipate larger-than-normal crowds.
“We’ll have bigger staff than normal on Friday and Saturday, and we always have a big sale,” Lorenzoni said.
Black Friday also signifies the beginning of Christmas holiday shopping for many stores and customers.
“It’s kind of the beginning of the Christmas season in general,” Spring Street Boutique owner Cynthia Schroeder said. “People have been shopping … in general for their gifts, and Black Friday is a busy day — and we’re looking forward to a lot of activity.”
Many local businesses will also participate in Small Business Saturday, a nationally recognized event initiated by American Express to encourage people to shop locally.
“Small Business Saturday … is the day after Black Friday and it’s a day when small businesses promote shopping local and they often use their own promotions to try to get people in a local store after they’ve probably been in a big box store the day before,” Johnson said.
Lorenzoni sees Small Business Saturday as a day when people shop locally with businesses they feel that they want to support.
“It’s kind of the opposite of what you think of Black Friday shopping,” Lorenzoni said. “You’re actually going to a place where there are great deals but it’s a little less stressful and a little calmer, traffic and ambience.”
Even with most students off Grounds, Thanksgiving brings a lot of activity to the Corner and local Charlottesville businesses. Black Friday as well as Small Business Saturday create a busy weekend for local stores, drawing in different crowds of local residents or visiting families.
“We have a lot a lot of people that come back home to Charlottesville from college or had moved away and come home to visit their families,” Lorenzoni said. “They can live in San Fransisco, they can live in Michigan, they live in Florida, they live in New York and they come home to see their family, and they wait until they come home to shop with us. That always means a lot to us.”
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