LITTLE ROCK — Retailers big and small will put their best foot forward Friday in hopes that this year’s holiday shopping season won’t be as dismal as forecasted.

Tomorrow is Black Friday, the official beginning of the Christmas shopping season and the day when businesses hope to move from red to black - in debt to turning a profit.

In Searcy’s historic downtown, businesses have banded together in hopes that shoppers will rediscover the holiday tradition of shopping locally. Mainstreet Searcy Executive Director Amy Burton said that some individual stores will do their best to promote a festive spirit with extended hours, refreshments and door prizes.

The city’s Web site, www.searcy. com, has also stepped in to provide local businesses with an organizational hub. The site has designed a Shop Searcy Holiday Savings Guide. Shoppers can pick one up and find special deals from Hays, Sowell’s Furniture, Serendipity Shoppe, Gregory’s, Everett, Stanley Pharmacy, Blackbird Boutique, Caldwell Country Store, AbsoluteIndulgence Day Spa, The Boutique, Leslie Jewelers, Doc’s Grill and the Scrub Hub.

Shoppers have until 5 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 10, to visit each shop with the brochure and complete a sign-in form. Searcy.com will draw a $500 shopping spree winner on Friday, Dec. 12, and announce the winner on its Web site. Shoppers do not have to actually purchase anything in the shops to be eligible to win.

Gregory’s is a gourmet/ import/Arkansas-made shop. Owner Bill Gregory said the store will actually be closed on Black Friday, but it will host a one-year anniversary/open house of sorts from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 6, to kick off the holiday season.

Christmas decorations already in place, Gregory said they are preparing to compete with bigger chain stores for holiday shoppers.

“It’s tough,” Gregory said. “You just sort of throw your line out there and hope someone grabs it. We try to be unique.”

As for the Shopping Guide, Gregory said he’ll be excited about seeing how it goes.

“We’re glad to see anything that will encourage people to shop in Searcy,” Gregory said. “We draw some out-of-town customers, but our emphasis is on Searcy.”

Chain stores like JC Penney and the Factory Connection are armed with their usual arsenal of Black Friday weapons: longer hours and shorter prices.

Up the road in Batesville, downtown businesses are also looking for that competitive edge. Mainstreet Batesville will hold one of its monthly second Friday events on Dec. 12, when businesses will stay open late and festivities will be organized to draw more shoppers downtown. Batesville will also participate in the state’s Festival ofLights event for the first time in several years. As part of the program, participating businesses are asked to keep later hours through Wednesday, Dec. 24.

Thompson’s Jewelry has participated in all of the second Friday events so far and plans to keep the doors open late as much as possible, especially on Fridays, between now and Christmas. David Thompson, whose family runs the business,said Black Friday will be a big sale day, and the store will hold its biggest sale of the year on Saturday.

“And we’re not joking,” Thompson said. “We don’t advertise ‘biggest sale ever’ every month. This actually will be our biggest sale of the year.”

The store is already decorated, with lights outside and decorations inside, and they’ll add some new lines of jewelrythis season. But Thompson said some of their best selling points are the things they kept doing and the bigger chain stores left behind, like no-extra-charge layaway and service after the sale. The business has been operating since 1924.

While Thompson’s has continued to do many things the same, shoppers’ habits have changed. Thompson said events like the second Fridays downtown have not been profitable from a business standpoint yet, but they’ll continue participating with an eye on the future.

“We have profited from people being back on Main Street,” Thompson said, “getting to talk to people, getting people back downtown where all of the shopping used to be done.”

Bigger Batesville stores like Walmart, Hastings and Goody’s will be ready for Black Friday with their own tried-and-true techniques. Each store will have sales throughout the weekend, and Hastings and Goody’s will both be open today as well as having sales on Black Friday.

- awidner@ arkansasonline.com

This article was published Thursday, November 27, 2008.

Three Rivers, Pages 70, 71 on 11/27/2008

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