With less than one month to go, local businesses in downtown Lethbridge are gearing up for the Christmas shopping rush.
Black Friday was originally an event that takes place in the U.S., but over the years became popular in Canada and is better known to be the unofficial start to holiday shopping. Local businesses in Lethbridge are expecting customers to come out and get their Christmas shopping complete in the next couple of weeks.
The Sill and Soil, a local garden centre in downtown Lethbridge opened a store front location in August 2020 after transitioning from a strictly online store.
“From the conversations that I’ve been having with people, there has definitely been a lot of people already starting or finishing their Christmas shopping. My online sales are actually going down and more people are coming in just because I am more accessible for people to shop at,” said Hannah Lee, owner and operator of The Sill and Soil.
She opened the store downtown after they outgrew their home greenhouse and garage. She has continued to offer curbside pick-up at their new location in the hopes of getting more customers to come in and shop.
“We’re offering curbside, delivery and in December, we’re going to be offering delivery to some of the small feeder communities as well,” said Lee.
The Sill and Soil started up in January 2018 by attending different markets and using an online format before opening their store in August 2020, when a dream space went up for sale in the downtown core. Lee says she’s always loved plants and took a leap of faith to see if anyone else in the community shares the same interests.
“It’s been quite a few years now and over the years I’ve just kind of been talking to people, seeing if this is a hobby that I’m just interested in or if there’s a whole community out there and it turns out that there’s a huge community of plant lovers in Lethbridge and surrounding area.”
The streets in downtown Lethbridge are lined with local businesses and shops offering a wide variety of options to choose from. Lee says the vibe of downtown with different farmers markets and the Bright Lights Festival attracted her to opening her business downtown.
“I grew up in Lethbridge and I’ve always loved downtown. You can’t beat the architecture, I have a beautiful brick wall in my store, beautiful west facing windows and a surprising amount of foot traffic comes my way.”
Another store in downtown Lethbridge that has had to make significant changes to their daily operations is Umami Shop. Since COVID-19 Umami Shop has moved their weekly cooking classes to a virtual set up. Patricia Luu, owner of Umami Shop says the cooking classes are relatively the same, the only change is you cook from your own kitchen.
“They order their kit for the week and they choose which day and what time they are going to come pick it up and they can either do pick up or we deliver. Everybody pre-orders their kit online and then they tune in either on Facebook or YouTube, but this time we’re doing Zoom because it’s a bit more interactive for the people.”
Umami Shop has transitioned their whole store online to allow people to shop from home during the holiday season if they don’t feel safe going to the store in person. They have added additional protocols to meet AHS guidelines with the new capacity limit as well as sanitizing and mask wearing by both customers and staff.
“We’re a specialty store, so we see it affecting us immediately because a lot of products are coming from outside of Canada. So, there’s a supply chain problem, a lot of people locally understand that once they come here, there’s maybe not the products that they’re used to getting,” said Luu.
In preparation for the Christmas rush, Umami Shop has recently added gift certificates for customers to buy allowing them to spend them at a later date.
Local businesses rely on the community support especially during the COVID-19 pandemic to stay afloat.
“If you do happen to have some holiday shopping, then we’re happy to help you. It’s so important not only for a local economy, but also in the sustainability aspect of it as well. There is a place for big box stores, but if you can local [businesses offer] an amazing option and I can’t believe how talented Lethbridge is and what they have here to offer,” added Lee.