Local businesses hopeful for the holidays

Cold air has started to drift into Bloomington, and it’s a small reminder the holiday season is quickly approaching.

But it’s no surprise for local businesses that have been preparing for months, in hopes of attracting more consumers than previous years.

Georgena Kincaid, director of operations for Gold Casters Fine Jewelry in Bloomington, said the jewelry store starts ordering more pieces for the holidays in June so the inventory arrives in September and October.

“If you don’t start early, you’ll get left behind,” she said. “The most important thing we do is all our buying for the store.”

She said the store’s sales usually see an increase in November and December, specifically with bracelets, earrings, pendants and occasionally watches.

“Jewelry is the most popular thing you can buy, especially for women,” Kincaid said.
Despite an expected increase in customers, Kincaid said they don’t hire extra help because they don’t necessarily need it.

“In our environment temporary employees don’t really work,” she said. “We keep a very strong staff all year long.”

Kincaid said the store has a strong customer base, but the employees still try to reach out to more people during the holidays.

One of the promotions is the store’s annual Christmas open house, a week after Thanksgiving. Kincaid said this is a popular event, especially for couples that look at items together and then later come back and buy the jewelry alone.

Pictura Gallery also participates in a promotional holiday event in downtown
Bloomington.

Martha Moore, owner of the gallery, said for the annual event,  10 galleries downtown stay open late and feature holiday specials, decorations, food and music.

“That’s sort of a big kick off for December for the art galleries,” Moore said. “That’s something that is a very coordinated effort between the galleries to bring people in for the holidays.”

Moore said the gallery starts planning for the holidays in the spring so they can schedule a good exhibition to display in November and December.

“Our biggest thing is to make sure we have really high quality work up during the holiday season,” she said. “Because it’s one of the biggest times of the year, we spend a lot of time getting ready for those shows.”

In addition to lining up good exhibits for the year, the gallery also sells the artwork shown and tries to promote this especially during the gift-buying time.
“We increase our inventory of books and cards, and we always have some type of sale,” Moore said.

She said the gallery doesn’t see a huge increase in sales during the holiday season, but they do have more people visiting the gallery.

“I still think people are hesitant on big purchases,” Moore said.

Similar to Gold Casters, she said the gallery doesn’t hire additional employees because they simply aren’t needed. 

Nancy Fribley, a certified personal chef for Zest! Personal Chef Service, also doesn’t hire help for the holiday season because she only cooks for small groups or families. A new service she said she’s featuring this year is cooking for small dinner parties of two to four people.

Although she thinks things will be slightly busier this year,  she said her standard service will remain the same, and in the past two years, it has slightly decreased during the holidays because more people cook on their own and more people
leave town.

Even in the toughest economic times, Kincaid said she believes people will celebrate Christmas, anniversaries and other special occasions to keep a sense of normalcy in their lives.

“I think the customers are even more optimistic,” Kincaid said. “It seems like the doom and gloom has kind of dissipated.”