After surviving two years of COVID restrictions on indoor shopping, Sault Ste. Marie business owners are facing this year’s Christmas season with a different set of concerns.
“It’s just a mess, the supply chain’s a mess and the shipping costs for businesses are going up,” said Sam Lepore, Steelton Shoes owner.
Inflation is making shoppers jittery as they prepare to buy gifts for family and friends.
“I would say Christmas shopping will be a bit slower with the gas prices and the food prices, so shoppers are going to have less money to buy with. If you normally have a $200 budget for boots you may have to go down to $100 boots. I anticipate sales will be a little bit lower because of it,” Lepore said, speaking to SooToday.
“Everything has gone up between the cost of hair care products, shipping, PUC, gas, everything’s going up. It’s hard now for small businesses,” said Gerry Giordano, Hollywood Cambrian Mall owner.
“I think the seniors are watching their money a lot more because they’re on pensions but all in all people are still spending. People are still buying products, but it’s not as busy as it was before the pandemic.”
“Absolutely everything has gone up and the shipping costs are very expensive,” said Tracey Theriault, Duke Of Windsor Sport Shop co-owner.
“We’re still waiting on some goods. I’ve gotten only three quarters of my gloves and by this point every year I would normally be fully stocked, so there is an issue,” Theriault said.
She added that some of her suppliers are asking her to place orders for next winter while she still hasn’t received all of her goods for this winter.
“I’m not going to say I’m not nervous about this season,” Theriault said. “Right now, I’d say it’s a little quieter. I think people are holding their purse strings a little tighter right now.”
“Canadians are looking forward to the holiday season but will be trimming their spending ahead of time to make the most of it,” according to a 2022 holiday shopping report from Accenture, an information technology services and consulting firm.
Accenture, in a release dated Nov. 15, says it conducted an online survey with a representative sample of 1,510 Canadian consumers.
Some are cutting back on entertainment subscriptions and eating at restaurants, spending less on travel or hotel stays or cutting down on utility bills by using fewer decorative lights, the study found.
Others said they’ll take on babysitting, dog walking, selling items on a marketplace or that they’ll put in more hours at work to earn extra money before the holidays, according to the Accenture study.
Despite looking for ways to save money or ways to earn more money before the holidays, the majority of Canadians who took part in the Accenture survey - 59 per cent - say they expect to spend the same amount of money on Christmas shopping as they did in 2021 and 16 per cent expect to spend more.
Despite their concerns, Sault business owners are expressing optimism about the 2022 Christmas shopping season.
“My business is more of a necessity. Once winter comes you need winter boots. We’ve seen cycles before. I’ve seen hard times at Algoma Steel and high interest rates,” Lepore said, confident these tough times will pass.
Giordano said that his customers aren’t buying hair and beauty supplies as Christmas gifts just yet, but business is good at his shop’s tanning salon.
“A lot more people are going away on vacation right now because they haven’t been able to go away for two years, so the sun tanning has been getting busier.”
“The snow will come. People are excited about the ski hill. We have customers from Wawa and Dubreuilville who come down and buy skis so I suspect it’s going to turn out to be a good Christmas and a good winter season,” Theriault said.
Theriault said that the number of people that turn out to shop at Thursday’s Sault Ste. Marie Downtown Association Moonlight Magic event and the Sault’s annual ski and snowboard swap on Saturday, Nov. 19 at the Moose Lodge will be an indicator of how this year’s Christmas shopping season will be.
“We’ve seen recessions in the past but people in general are still going to shop and buy Christmas gifts, although it may be in a reduced amount,” said Nicholas Rosset, Savoy's Jewellers co-owner.
“We try to stock inventory at all price points to accommodate any budget so we try to be ahead of that potential issue with decreased consumer spending.”
“We do see a lot of engagements at the Christmas season. Right around now is when a lot of people tend to get engaged and for us those are big ticket items.”
“Today (Wednesday) we had our first snowfall and that typically, for us, kicks things off. We notice a trend in our customers in that they shift their focus from other types of shopping into the Christmas mentality. Last week we had our 70th anniversary sale and it was very successful, so people are still shopping,” Rosset said.
Chuck Drewitt, Art Gabriel’s Men’s Shop owner, is accentuating the positive.
“I’m very happy with the way things have gone, especially this year. People have been back out, they’ve been at weddings, restaurants, they’ll be going to Christmas parties,” Drewitt said.
Drewitt is clearly happy to concentrate on the fact his business has survived through COVID lockdowns and is projecting that Christmas shopping will pick up after the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday.
Drewitt said he has not observed inflation to be as much of a factor at his shop as compared to other businesses and noted there haven’t been many supply chain issues.
“There’ve been some hiccups but I’m liking the look of our store right now. I’m blessed. I have a wonderful clientele that has shopped with me over the years and the suppliers we have are great suppliers.”
“We’re very positive. We’re very passionate. It’s Christmas and this will be our 74th Christmas in business and we expect it to be the same as always,” Drewitt said.
Rory Ring, Sault Ste. Marie Chamber of Commerce CEO, said it’s now more important than ever to support local businesses, many of which took on debt just to keep their doors open during the pandemic and are now facing new pressures from supply chain issues and inflation.
“There certainly is an underlying sense of apprehension because the border is open so you’ve got cross border shopping considerations and there is concern the consumer has around the deterioration of their discretionary spending. The consumer is seeing the cost of everything going up, like groceries, dining out, the cost of hydro and heat, the cost of borrowing, their mortgages, their lines of credit, so you're seeing some anxiety.”
That said, Ring said the Chamber is still pushing the ‘love local’ campaign for not only Christmas sales but also Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales.
“Many businesses at this time of year depend upon the Christmas season for almost 50 per cent or more of their revenue, and if we keep our dollars local those businesses can invest in our charities, in community programs, in youth programs, so the benefits of making sure that you shop local, whether that’s a digital local business or a physical store that you can go into, are important.”
“Our message to our community would be to continue the commitment that they made throughout the pandemic to keep their dollars local,” Ring said.
“While consumers look forward to yet another shopping season, success for retailers will come from being empathetic to consumer challenges and focusing on delivering enhanced in-store experiences, meeting rising consumer demand for more efficient shipping and doing right by their employees,” the Accenture report stated.
Chamber CEO Ring agrees.
“We’ve always encouraged our business community to ensure that they’re providing the best experience a customer can have when they enter into their place of business.”
That won’t be a problem, Sault merchants said.
“That’s my specialty. That’s why people come because I try, I go out of my way and order stuff for people to get them footwear. They come for that personalized service, so that’s what you need to keep doing,” Lepore said.
“That's always been the motto of our business, to provide the best possible service we can,” Rossett said.
“Our website is fairly comprehensive and we do display a lot of our inventory there but it’s not set up for e-commerce. We do prefer to deal with people in the store.”
“That’s certainly something we always do but it’s critical now. A lot of people have said ‘I’m going to check here first before I go online,’ and that’s fabulous. People have been really good, especially the older clientele. The locals really have tried to support local businesses,” Theriault said.