Local businesses ring up good sales - 13abc.com Toledo (OH) News, Weather and Sports

A record setting shopping weekend. From Thanksgiving Day to Black Friday and Small Business Saturday people were parting with their money at a record pace, for a grand total of just over 59 billion spent at U-S stores and websites over the holiday weekend.

Of course there are a lot of great locally owned businesses and we could only feature of few of them in this story, but we made stops in Downtown Toledo, Sylvania and Perrysburg. It was a good weekend for the stores we visited, all of them ringing up similar or even a little better sales than last year.

Here at Kids Klothesline in Perrysburg the shelves are stocked and people are starting to wrap up their holiday shopping. Black Friday is important to Kids Klothesline, but not critical to the bottom line. Teresa Meredith is the store manager,"Black Friday is not a really big day for us, but we are pleased with how it went and we are also pleased with sales over the weekend. We feel there is a definite upward trend. The overall economy is much better and we are lucky to have the support of the local community."

At Sophie's Sister in Downtown Toledo, sales are up from last year. Store manager Susan Wilson says their customer service and unique offerings are two of the big draws, "It was great this year! We had a lot of business and a lot of foot traffic which is great for downtown. We work hard to get people downtown to see all of our great businesses."

Men's store Michael David has been a part of Downtown Toledo for decades. Store owner Michael Brinker says their customer service and quality products set them apart from most stores. He says the appeal of his store on black Friday for a lot of customers is the location," We have a loyal group of customers who don't want to deal with all the crowds and chaos at some of the bigger stores over the holidays. So it was very much like other Black Fridays in the past."

It was a busy shopping weekend at C'est La Vie in Sylvania. Owner Katherine Volpi says that trend will continue right through the January sales, "I can't complain. You always hope for more, but in this economy we did well. We also had a lot of good days up until that point, so I am happy now."

Over the holiday shopping weekend Americans shelled out an average of $423 dollars to make up that grand total of just over 59 billion. Analysts say is about a four percent increase from last year. Of course that does not include the Cyber Monday totals at this point. Consumer spending makes up 70 percent of the US economy and 40 percent of that spending happens in November and December alone.

@

@