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This Black Friday, Small Business Owners In Lake Worth Beach Want Shoppers To Think Local

Madeline Fox
/
WLRN
Phyllis Plaskett and her Magnolia Boutique are participating in a Black Friday small business event called Sip and Shop. She hopes more shoppers will spend at local businesses on the biggest shopping day of the year.

Black Friday has traditionally been a big-box store experience. Families pore over ads and pick out the items they’re going to run for as soon as the doors open, some as early as Thanksgiving Day itself.

Consumer attitudes have been shifting over the last several years, though. Black Friday isnot the occasion it used to be. And now, in Lake Worth Beach, smaller businesses are hoping to drive a shift toward shopping local, starting with a Black Friday event called "Sip and Shop." The timing – from 3 to 9 p.m. — means shoppers can hit the malls first.

After that, business owners like Phyllis Plaskett are hoping shoppers will spend some time — and money — in the city’s downtown. 

“The town comes out for Small Business Saturday, which is great,” she said.  “We’re hoping to also capture that on Black Friday. Instead of going to the malls, support this town all weekend long.”

Plaskett owns Magnolia Boutique, which carries handmade, fair trade and sustainable clothing and accessories. She said local businesses like hers are often asked to invest locally and give back to the community for fundraisers or other projects. She’d like to see Lake Worth Beach residents do the same.

“When something is needed, they come to the businesses in town, but when the businesses in town need them to support us, it’s not there,” she said. “It has to be a synergy.”

Plaskett said she didn’t get a lot of foot traffic last Black Friday, but she’s hoping the new event will draw more people in.

Near Plaskett’s shop, the Flamingo Clay Studio was setting up outdoor tents for Sip and Shop. Owner Joyce Brown has been a small business owner in Lake Worth Beach for more than a decade. Her nonprofit co-op for local artists has been in its J Street location for the last seven years.

Over that time, she’s seen a lot of ups and downs. Right now, she said, is one of the downs.

“In this last year, it’s just tanked in terms of the arts,” she said. “I’m hearing that from all over the county.”

She cites rising rents and fewer people browsing Lake Worth Beach’s brick-and-mortar stores.

“It’s not because we don’t have quality, because we do,” she said, “but I think there’s been a huge switch away from people who used to walk through town and browse in all of our little shops.”

The studio is offering a 10 percent discount on its classes in making pottery, copper enameling, crafting holiday ornaments and other techniques during Sip and Shop.

Todd Ketcham manages The Book Cellar, a bookstore with a coffee shop and bar that’s been in Lake Worth Beach for just more than two years. He’s not optimistic about Black Friday, but he's expecting bigger sales for Small Business Saturday, when people turn out in droves to support their local businesses.

Credit Madeline Fox / WLRN
/
WLRN
The Book Cellar on J Street in Lake Worth Beach. Owner Todd Ketcham said he gets more business on Small Business Saturday, but some shoppers opted out of the Black Friday rush and came by for coffee or books.

“We’re here the other 364 days of the year,” he said. “But it’s the one day that all the national publicity says: ‘Come and shop at your local businesses.’”

Andy Amoroso, the city’s vice mayor, said he’s seen a steady trickle of people coming into his Java Juice Bar and Cafe @ Studio 205 to fuel up before Black Friday sales or to detox from Thanksgiving’s rich food. There have been fewer takers on his store’s vintage and specialty merchandise. He’s expecting more of that on Small Business Saturday.

He, too, worries about rising rents pushing out small business owners in Lake Worth Beach’s downtown – and that people are spending their money online instead of in their local stores.

“Shopping local, you keep more of your money local,” he said. “Your mom and pop shops, your small shops — they live in your downtown areas, they shop in your downtown areas, they eat in your downtown areas. So the money you're spending at a small business goes right back into the community that you live in.”

Brown, the clay studio owner, said it’ll take more than Black Friday or Small Business Saturday to keep small businesses going.

“If you don’t support local businesses, it’s like losing your teeth: You can’t get them back again,” she said. “Better brush your merchants like you brush your teeth, so they don’t go away.”

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