Small businesses gear up for holiday shoppers

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Small Business Saturday, created five years ago to encourage residents’ interest in shopping at local businesses, is set for Nov. 28. Each year, on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, participating shoppers forgo the malls and big-box stores to patronize the businesses in their own neighborhoods.

So what are local retailers doing to prepare for the event this Saturday? The owners of nearly a dozen local stores didn’t seem to be focusing on this weekend, but instead were gearing up for the holidays as usual.

“We were very busy with Rosh Hoshana and Yom Kippur, and then rolled right into fall and Halloween, and now we’re full steam ahead for Hanukkah and the holidays,” said Karl Riesterer Jr., an owner of Riesterer’s Bakery, in West Hempstead. Riesterer said that his chocolate houses, Hanukkah donuts, menorah cookies and lollipops will be ready the day after Thanksgiving, as will his Christmas cookie trays. The bakery, he said, promotes its goodies through email blasts and on the company’s website, Rbakery.com.

Gerry Hughes, owner of Connolly Station, in Malverne, said he, too, is working to keep up with the holiday-season pace. “I’m busy enough on Saturdays as it is,” said Hughes, who added that reasonable prices and live Irish music keep his restaurant and bar flourishing. “It’s cheaper to come here than go out and buy chopped meat, rolls, French fries and soda,” he said. “We have 2-for-1 coupons from Monday through Thursday but on the weekends, I don’t need coupons at all.” Hughes noted that 2015 has been his business’s best year ever.

According to a recent study done by the consulting firm PwC, “experiential” gifts — travel, food and entertainment — are expected to account for 12 percent of consumer holiday purchases this year, and gift cards for 20 percent. That’s good news to Jean Bertini, owner of EBJ Skincare, on Arlington Avenue in Malverne. “We definitely get an uptick in gift certificate sales around this time,” she said, adding that her shop, which just celebrated its one-year anniversary, offers facials, hair removal and massages, as well as specialty services for oncology patients, who often can’t tolerate many of the chemicals in skin care products after they undergo chemotherapy and radiation.

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