Downtown retailers report ‘very steady’ holiday shopping

Photo by Deb Gau
Sarah Kesteloot, at left, helps a customer shopping for clothes at Rustic Hideaway Boutique on Friday.

MARSHALL — This holiday shopping season has been a steady one for Marshall downtown businesses, store owners and workers said.

“The past week has been really busy for shopping,” said Meredith Callens at the Noble Woman Boutique on Main Street. Customers were looking for everything from gifts to clothing for holiday gatherings, she said.

There’s one full week of shopping time left before the Christmas holiday. On Friday afternoon, customers could be seen browsing a few different downtown stores, either on their own or with friends.

Some local retailers said they had seen increased foot traffic in their stores in the holiday shopping season.

“It’s been a great holiday season,” Columbia Imports owner Dereck Deutz said of traffic at his store. However, things were slower through other parts of the year, he said.

Deutz said people tended to come downtown and shop when there were events like sports tournaments going on in Marshall.

“There’s always good foot traffic on weekends,” he said. At this time of year, Columbia Imports also fills corporate orders for gift boxes. Deutz said he sees a mix of in-person and online customers.

“This year, it has been very steady,” Sarah Kesteloot said of traffic at the Rustic Hideaway Boutique. It was a positive thing — she said one ongoing concern for her is that people have tended to do less local shopping in the years since the COVID pandemic.

Rustic Hideaway Boutique held a grand re-opening in early November. Earlier this fall, a car crashed into the storefront windows, forcing the boutique to close for repairs. Kesteloot said she was glad Rustic Hideaway was able to reopen in time for the holiday shopping season. But she wasn’t sure if the amount of customer traffic she’s seen was more due to holiday shopping, or people showing support for the store reopening.

“It’s been a great support system, coming back,” Kesteloot said.

Events like Black Friday and Small Business Saturday sales did draw customers downtown, some local businesspeople said.

“We were pretty busy for Black Friday and Small Business Saturday,” said Heather Rokeh of Graceful Marilyn Quilt Shoppe. Rokeh said Graceful Marilyn will also hold pop-up events, and this year they partnered with United Way of Southwest Minnesota to hold gift-wrapping events on Thursdays in December.

However, the months of September through December also tended to be busy for the Quilt Shoppe in general, Rokeh said.

“If feels like we always pick up more,” she said. Many customers were working to finish projects in time for Christmas. At the same time, quilting was a popular indoor hobby during the winter.

Rokeh said Graceful Marilyn was “blessed,” in that they had build up a community of customers.

Marshall Area Fine Arts Council president Charlotte Wendel said events like Marshall’s downtown open house on Small Business Saturday, and even downtown trick-or-treating in October, brought people into the MAFAC gallery and gift shop on Third Street. She said there had also been an increase in the number of customers at the gift shop.

“We have had more than there’s usually been,” Wendel said.

Offering expanded hours was another way that local businesses were working to draw in customers for the holiday shopping season. Noble Woman was open seven days a week in December, said Callens and Whitney Deutz.

“I think people take advantage of that for sure,” Deutz said. Customers with busy work schedules might find it easier to visit the boutique on a Sunday, she said. Expanded hours also helped people trying to find great stocking stuffers or last-minute gifts.

Downtown stores also tended to draw people from around the Marshall area, and sometimes from farther away, businesspeople said. That seemed to hold true for the people shopping Friday afternoon. Molly McGuire and Ted Pesch were among the people browsing downtown stores. Pesch and McGuire said they were visiting family in southwest Minnesota, and had come downtown to see the MAFAC gallery.

“Then, we knew about Columbia Imports,” Pesch said, so they stopped in afterward. “And then there’s another art space we want to see.”