A sidewalk stroll where shopping bags contain the magic ingredient for retailers.<\/p>\n
“I’m shopping for Christmas,” said a shopper inside a local small business.<\/p>\n
As small businesses are hoping, those like Cherryville’s Brian Beers break down their doors as we head into the final weekend before Christmas.<\/p>\n
“How often have you bought from a small local business like this?” 69 News reporter Bo Koltnow asked.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“At least 50% of the time. I usually like to come into the small businesses and support them,” he responded.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This as nationally Small Business Saturday was down 20% from 2024, foot traffic off 4% in the Northeast, as winter storms kept many away.<\/p>\n
Assembly 88’s Santo Napoli says spending is down this season in his Allentown store, but its customer reach expanded.<\/p>\n
Despite tariffs having some impact, He gives the season a B, as does Emmaus’s Cottage & Bloom, with Super Saturday a make or break day for many.<\/p>\n
Joanne Smida of Bethlehem’s the Christmas Shop and Hand Cut Crystal, also gives this season a solid B. This in the Main Street shop’s 39th year.<\/p>\n
“We still have a week left, but we still have seen some of our greatest long-term customers come through. So that always makes me happy. I get worried when I don’t see them,” she said.<\/p>\n
For small businesses, seeing customers is believing in a successful holiday season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A sidewalk stroll where shopping bags contain the magic ingredient for retailers. “I’m shopping for Christmas,” said a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":65668,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[214,232,153,155,154],"class_list":{"0":"post-65667","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bethlehem","8":"tag-_homepage_top_stories","9":"tag-allentown-area","10":"tag-bethlehem","11":"tag-bethlehem-headlines","12":"tag-bethlehem-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65667"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65667\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}