North Texans were out shopping local for Small Business Saturday

GRAPEVINE, Texas - In downtown Grapevine and other parts of North Texas, shoppers showed up for Small Business Saturday.

The cooler temperatures didn’t keep shoppers away.

“We can’t show you everything or they might see what we’re getting them,” shopper Terri Kitzmiller said.

Though Kitzmiller and Kim Cardwell cannot reveal everything they bought, just in case certain loved ones are watching, they’re happy to explain why they’re here in Grapevine for Small Business Saturday.

“They care about whoever comes down here. Grapevine is just the best place ever,” Kitzmiller said.

Experts said small businesses need holiday shopping revenue now more than ever.

“About 60% of them have seen huge revenue losses, and half of them would need higher than normal holiday shopping revenues in order to be able to survive this holiday season, making it into 2021,” Mishty Deb explained.

Deb is an attorney who works primarily with small businesses.

“Most of the money, every dollar you spend on a local business, about 60-70% of that stays in your local community,” she explained.

“It’s so important because you help all these people that kind of are following their dreams,” said Jennifer Swanson, manager of Palm Tree Boutique.

She said it’s a great feeling to have customers back in store after they went online-only during the shutdown.

Joe Green, however, said online-only really doesn’t work well for music stores, like the one he works at.

“We would not survive,” he said. “We fit people to guitars like we’d fit someone to shoes. We sit them down, we throw a couple guitars at them, we see what the fit and the feel of the guitar is to them. We don’t want to sell them something too big and we don’t want to sell them something too small. So we have to fit them to the guitar.”

He said business is picking up, but they were feeling the blues during the shutdown.

“So, the walk-in business and people walking in to try our products means everything to us,” he added.

Plenty of businesses are still hurting, and Congress still has not passed a second stimulus bill.

“Given the present political situation, the last time they got support was in early spring and it was really intended to help them get through June or July and now it’s December. And I think a lot of businesses are in a situation they never anticipated,” Deb said.

She added that this holiday season is make-or-break for some North Texas businesses.

“Statistics are about 100,000 businesses nationwide have already shut their doors,” Deb said.

But Kitzmiller and Cardwell said, that in Grapevine, it’s clear that it’s the little things which prove small businesses and shoppers are in it together.