Small businesses in Wheaton keep up with shorter shopping season

It’s the most wonderful time of the year for small businesses, as shoppers flock to their stores looking for gifts and deals.

The holiday shopping season left businesses and shoppers with fewer days between Thanksgiving and Christmas, as Thanksgiving fell on its last possible date in 2024.

While late Thanksgiving won’t happen again until 2030, small business owners in Wheaton and St. Charles said the shorter season seemed to draw in shoppers faster.

“You know, we have five days less than usual, Thanksgiving was really late, but I think the good thing was we started with a bang,” said Jill Card, owner of Jeans And A Cute Top Shop at Wheaton and St Charles. saying. “I like that the panic came a little earlier, it’s working.”

Card has 15 years of experience in the holiday shopping season under his belt.

“It’s been festive, it’s been busy,” he said. “Everything happened so quickly that we got to work.”

This year, her customers gravitated toward jeans and holiday clothing.

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“We have bows on the jewelry, we have bows on the sweaters,” she said.

Twenty percent of its annual sales occur during the peak holiday shopping season, which is crucial to success.

High street stores are seeing similar results in the short season.

“We’ve been working non-stop,” said Elizabeth Di John, owner of Wildflower Mercantile in Wheaton. “The fact that consumers knew they were going to have a shorter window gave them permission to start shopping sooner.”

Di John expanded its hours and opened seven days a week to take into account the Christmas rush.

As a first-time business owner, she said this time of year is everything for a small business.

“We prosper because of it. To be honest, it’s really decisive,” he said. “It prepares us to be able to go into the community and bring new products to our store… That means a lot to us.”

Only 27 days separated Thanksgiving and Christmas this year, five fewer than last year. Thanksgiving will fall on November 28 approximately every five or six years. The next time this happens will be in 2030, and it won’t happen again until 2041.