Dec. 9, 2021

Across downtown Sioux Falls, retail records are breaking this holiday season.

At Sticks & Steel, it was the best Black Friday in the store’s 20-year history.

At Child’s Play Toys, Small Business Saturday delivered the store’s biggest single day in its 12 years in business.

At The Spice & Tea Exchange, that Saturday also set a new all-time record, bringing sales so strong the only stores in the company that outperformed Sioux Falls were at Walt Disney World and Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia.

“It’s been amazing and hard to believe, and after all these years and especially after last year, to see where things have gone, I could start crying,” Child’s Play owner Nancy Savage said. “It makes me so happy people are still supporting local businesses.”

Not only are they still supporting local, but also they’re going out of their way to do it, downtown retailers said.

“I had many people tell me they were doing all their Christmas shopping at local businesses, and a lot of them were doing it downtown,” Savage said.

An informal poll of downtown retailers and restaurateurs found 17 of 30 participants had bigger sales Small Business Saturday compared with Black Friday, while 13 saw more on Friday. But both days were exceptional, many said.

“The mood is good,” Sticks & Steel owner Terri Schuver said. “I think they enjoy being out because lots of them weren’t last year … and there’s comments about just the tradition of being out shopping downtown.”

The momentum has continued into December too. Last weekend brought First Friday followed by the 605 Made Holiday Market on Saturday. The market is organized by SiouxFalls.Business and Knotty Gnome Variety & Salvage of Hartford.

“The 605 Made Market always continues to us having a good day,” Schuver said. “It’s just that extra traffic that does wonders.”

Those thousands of shoppers found their way from Cherapa Place to Phillips Avenue too, said Tami Brown, the local franchisee for The Spice & Tea Exchange.

“I know we had a number of shoppers who were at the 605 Made Market because they were talking about it, and that happened two years ago as well,” she said. “They come in before or after that.”

At her store, sales are up more than 50 percent from 2020, Brown said.

“I think it’s a combination of things. People are still trying to support local, and … I wonder if the other thing is this will be our third holiday season, and I’m wondering if people are more familiar with us and our quality of product and they’re starting to think about gifts from our store more.”

Keeping gifts in stock has been a choppy process for retailers to navigate, which continues into December.

“It’s a little scary when we can look through our plastic tubs and not see tea or have hooks on the wall that are empty,” Brown said. “It’s taking the warehouse 10 to 12 days to pack an order and another five to get it across the country. So I have to be careful because I don’t want to overbuy, and yet when people bring in gift cards in January, they have to have something to buy.”

Child’s Play continues to get boxes of toys, many that were ordered months ago, Savage said.

“We have a mini trampoline we’ve never carried, and I ordered it months ago, and we just got it, so we have new fresh stuff to sell,” she said, adding the warehouse space she reserved to handle inventory issues “is almost empty,” but she anticipates “we’ll have plenty of inventory for the next few weeks.”

Sticks & Steel has experienced its own unique supply chain issues. As a wholesaler of steel decor to between 300 and 400 retailers nationwide, Schuver has experienced spikes both in business and steel cost.

“On the manufacturing side, our costs have risen so dramatically,” she said. “The plus is we’re shipping to way more customers. Our volume is way up. So it’s been a good lesson for me and the crew to say volume cures a lot of ills.”

The challenges with shipping internationally have driven business for U.S.-based suppliers, she added. So while that has been a boon for her wholesale business, at times it has made securing American-made retail items more difficult.

“Lead times are out way more, and the good news is all these retailers are finding American-made products because they have to,” she said. “So those of us who have been carrying American-made for a long time are suffering the consequences because our vendors are way out too. But hopefully some of these American companies are benefiting in the long term. We’re feeling the pinch because our American suppliers have become so busy, but I’m thrilled for them, and I’m thrilled for us.”

Given the increase in everything from goods to labor, margins can vary this season, retailers said.

At Child’s Play Toys, Savage anticipates prices for toys are going to increase, but they haven’t yet. She credits her buying group for providing leverage in areas such a shipping, so margin “hasn’t really been affected yet.”

But at The Spice & Tea Exchange, where fresh product continually is being ordered, prices when Brown orders have gone up between 20 percent and 50 percent.

“I think the untold story is that our sales look fabulous, but margins are shrinking,” she said. “So we’re having to work harder to figure it out. There’s a maximum people are going to pay for something.”

And the coming days will continue to be critical, retailers said.

“Traditionally, this week and weekend are our busiest in December,” Savage said. “This week is an important week for us, and then it dies down a little.”

Across downtown, the retailers say they’re hearing the same things from their neighbors: solid customer traffic and record or near-record sales.

For those who have done business here for many holiday seasons, it’s a welcome shift.

Five years ago, downtown retailers were reeling from the aftermath of the Phillips Avenue building collapse. In subsequent years, sales rebounded but never returned to pre-2016 levels, Schuver said.

“And we are there now,” she said.