🔒Locally sourced shops may be uniquely well positioned for a busy, stressful holiday shopping season

As the second consecutive coronavirus-impacted holiday shopping season gets underway, both retailers and consumers are tussling with concerns over supply chain shortages and subsequent shipping delays, including in Central Massachusetts.

The messaging has been clear, both nationally and locally: Shoppers have been encouraged to start their holiday shopping earlier than usual, and to prepare to be flexible if and when items they planned on purchasing are either delayed or unavailable. This is especially true for big-ticket and popular electronics.

“It’s going to be a challenging holiday season,” said Bill Rennie, vice president of the Retailers Association of Massachusetts.

Shops both large and small stand to be impacted by the multitude of economic challenges which manifested since March 2020, Rennie said. He pointed to shipping problems, factory shutdowns, and inclement weather, to name a few. Combined with staffing shortages at stores themselves, as well as in the logistics and delivery industries, many retailers are being squeezed from virtually every direction. 

“Even though we were in the middle of the pandemic last year, a lot of the items you're buying during the holiday season would have already been in the supply chain much, much earlier in the year,” Rennie said. “Now what we’re seeing today… is sort of the impact of all those supply chain disruptions over the last year.”

The local advantage

But while it may seem these problems have trickled down to every market, that might not actually be the case, Rennie said. What he referred to as main street businesses – gift shops and specialty stores – may see less of an impact because they have more of a niche product market. This is especially true if their products, or the materials they use to make them, are locally sourced.

Amy Lynn Chase, owner of Crompton Collective, The Haberdash, and The White Room, said that’s more or less been true for her and her circle of local retailers and makers.

“Our store is filled to the brim,” Chase said of Crompton Collective in particular. At The Haberdash, which just opened its third location, on Cape Cod, the biggest issue she’s encountered is slightly slower shipping times. Some of the makers she’s worked with have had challenges finding things like wax and wood, but even then, she’s cautiously optimistic.

“Honestly, nobody is really talking about it in my circles,” Chase said.

Still, customers do appear to be turning out earlier. As soon as Halloween ended, shoppers showed up to Chase’s shops looking for antique gifts and Christmas decorations, in particular.

“I don’t know if that’s because of supply chain talk … or if they’re just excited to decorate,” Chase said.

A busy season

Indeed, with society and the economy flipped upside down for the better part of two years, it’s difficult for industry stakeholders to explain what’s driving certain shopping decisions right now. Consumers seem to be shopping sooner for the holidays, yes, but that could be driven by a variety of factors, not just supply chain anxieties.

Rennie pointed out, while Black Friday and Small Business Saturday have come to mark the beginning of the holiday shopping frenzy, so-called Black Friday sales have started sooner and sooner each year, regardless of the pandemic. 

Plus, shoppers may simply desire a return to relative normalcy after spending last year isolating themselves and shopping online, as well as saving money they would have otherwise been spent in other discretionary areas, like traveling.

“Obviously, last year was definitely a break from normal,” said David Sullivan, economic development and business recruitment associate at the Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce. “But this year we’re expecting the Worcester area to kind of follow the same trend as what we’re seeing nationally. What’s being expected nationally is that retail demand is either going to be steady or it’s going to grow this year.”

Steady wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing, either. Data from the Massachusetts Department of Revenue from 2020 showed a slight decrease in sales and use tax collections between October and December, compared to 2019, but revenues for all three months were still significantly greater than 2018.

Revenues for October 2021, which came in at $686 million, are already much greater than the year prior, when the state reported $612 million, and even more so than 2019, when the state reported $599 million. All that to say, people still shopped through last year’s pandemic holiday season, and they’re expected to continue shopping during this year’s. Local retailers and their industry groups just hope they remember to turn to their locally owned businesses as much as possible.

“From my personal opinion, I think it’s going to be really busy,” Sullivan said. “People have saved up a lot of money… We’re coming out of 2020, and people are feeling good about next year.”