Cindy Eckhart, a clerk at the Escape Fine Crafts and Gifts shop in Georgetown, said business was down about 50 percent on Black Friday weekend because the city didn’t hold its annual Christmas lighting ceremony.
“Usually about 50,000 people come to the downtown square and then they come shopping,” she said of the event, which was canceled this year due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Like the Escape gift shop at 713 S. Main St. in Georgetown, other small stores in the city and in Round Rock whose business depends on a rush of holiday shoppers are suffering.
The owners of a custom jewelry shop in Round Rock that makes jewelry with handcrafted silver bells, Seantel Cockle and her husband John Cockle, said this is usually their busiest time of year.
But the festivals they go to around Christmas have been canceled and online business has been slow, said John Cockle. He said the sales at their business, called the Bell Collection at 214 N. Lampasas St. in Round Rock, have decreased about 85%.
“My wife and I haven’t drawn a check since March,” he said.
Aileen Albert, the owner of Stitched Bling, Embroidery Gifts & More at 1800 N. Mays St. in Round Rock, said she was expecting a rush of orders for monogrammed items before Thanksgiving but it never happened.
Bakery owner Paige Perry said her business, Paige’s Bakehouse at 110 E. Anderson Ave. in Round Rock, didn’t have big sales over the Black Friday shopping weekend, but brisk online orders have made her able to hire more employees.
Customers like to order small gifts that they can leave on friends’ doorsteps to avoid physical contact during the pandemic, she said. She said she sells a lot of 2.5-inch “baby” cakes and a ball of chocolate called a “cocoa bomb” that dissolves in hot milk and releases marshmallows.
Kerrie Funmaker, who co-owns Nathaniel’s Master Hatmaker at 111 E. Seventh St. in Georgetown with her husband Nate Funmaker, said their business, like others in the city’s downtown square area, suffered on Black Friday of the canceled Christmas lighting ceremony.
“We left at 6:30 p.m. instead of at 9 p.m. on Black Friday,” she said.
Jemme Lynn Wilks, the owner of La Bella Casa, a gift store on Georgetown’s downtown square, said her sales decreased by $1,368 on Black Friday compared with the same time last year.
“That’s not that bad at all,” said Wilks. She said she is selling a lot of her most popular items, including stuffed toys with the faces of gnomes covered by stocking Christmas caps.
Wilks said she stocked up on holiday gifts in the summer to sell them to out-of-town visitors who came during that time because the coronavirus might prevent them from later returning.
“I was bound and determined that were going to have Christmas this year,” she said, “because we missed everything else.”
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