Dexter Businesses See Positive Response with Small Business Saturday Sales

While Dexter businesses didn't see the boom in sales they were hoping for during the national event, several owners said they noticed a slight increase in holiday foot traffic.

Small Business Saturday is an annual shopping day promoted by American Express to encourage consumers to shop in locally owned, non-chain stores.

Benjamin Hourani, owner of , said he had "above average" sales on Saturday, mostly in the early evening.

"It was slow to start, but traffic picked up some in the afternoon," he said.

Barb Brewster, an employee at , said she attributes the light traffic to the Thanksgiving holiday weekend and the University of Michigan versus Ohio State football game televised Saturday afternoon.

"We had more traffic today than some other weekends, even if people weren't aware it was Small Business Saturday," she said. "We definitely got a lot of visitors between the restaurants and the patrons, so that's a plus."

Anne Kornow, co-owner of , said the store tripled its sales from last year on the same day, jumping from 23 customers to 108.

"We saw a lot of people visiting from Ypsilanti, Chelsea and Ann Arbor," she said. "There was some nice activity today. It was nice to see so many people promoting small businesses in Dexter."

Peter Theocharakis, owner of , said he noticed a lot more customers dining for lunch while shopping throughout the afternoon.

"I'm glad we had the opportunity to promote the community," he said. "Dexter is just a cute little town full of nice people and some great shops."

To help promote the weekend sale, the held a Winter Fest celebration, which featured Christmas carolers at Monument Park, a tree lighting ceremony and a window decorating contest.

"Even if we just brought 10 more people to town, then we did a good job," Abby Erickson, executive director of the chamber said. "A lot of businesses were eager to promote themselves today, which was good to see."

Erickson said the chamber will meet with busines owners in the coming weeks to evaluate the Winter Fest and plan how to change it for next year.

"We definitely want to grow it and feed off of the national Small Business Saturday initiative again," Erickson said. "Overall we are pretty happy with how it turned out."