"We were up 25-30 percent over last year," said Lew Windsor, owner of Casper's Messy Moose store and member of the Wyoming Retail Association (WRA).
"My dream is for Small Business Saturday to be bigger than Black Friday," she said, noting that customers on Saturday told her they had made a specific effort to shop that day because Small Business Saturday had been televised locally.
Small Business Saturday was started by and continues to be promoted by American Express as a way for small local businesses to cash in on the day after Black Friday, one of the biggest shopping days of the Christmas shopping season. Nationally, a survey from the National Federation of Independent Business and American Express estimated $5.5 billion in additional sales attributable to Small Business Saturday.
WRA President Rob Monroe's store, Nate's Flowers in Casper, also saw increased sales that day. "We had a good day Saturday," he said, noting in general this is a slow time for florist shops but that his sales had picked up this year.
The owner of three auto franchises in Cheyenne, WRA member Tim Joannides said his Thanksgiving weekend's sales were up 25-30 percent as well. "People come to Cheyenne from all the small towns surrounding us including Nebraska to shop for Black Friday sales and Small Business Saturday sales and we heavily promote to that [on TV, radio and newspaper ads]," Joannides said.
WRA member Patrick Collins, owner of The Bicycle Shop in Cheyenne, says his sales the day after Thanksgiving and on Small Business Saturday were up 53 percent from last year at the same time. He admits it is a bit of a statistical aberration because of some large sales, but as he pointed out, the main thing was his sales were "way up." Collins noted that bicycles these days can run from $1,500 to $10,000 and although he doesn't sell a lot of the latter, when he does it makes for a good weekend.
Sales across the state mirrored national trends and in some cases even exceeded them.
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