MACON, Ga. — Attention all shoppers: If you haven't gotten all of your Christmas gifts yet, local businesses say you should try shopping local!
According to the National Retail Federation, November and December are expected to set records for holiday spending.
When it comes to local businesses, they say the season brings in lots of joy — and lots of customers.
Although inflation slowed many of their sales down a bit, they say they've had more sales and foot traffic than ever before, especially during the Christmas season, and they expect it to keep coming until the new year.
Ashley Johnson is the owner of Rumor Boutique off Forsyth Road.
She said Black Friday really kicked off the store's high foot traffic for the season, and she's had about a 30% increase in sales.
"Community is 100% the reason we are still open," Johnson said.
Johnson opened her store in 2005, and she said dealing with inflation resulted in her marking up some items by $5 to $15. To be there for her customers and put a smile on their faces, however, brings her joy.
"Being in this shopping center where we are all locally owned businesses here together, the foot traffic and the support of the community has been amazing since 2005," Johnson said. "Christmas is a fun time to help people and gift wrap and showing generosity."
Alfred Hazel is the General Manager of The Honey Baked Ham Company in Macon.
He said he sees about 300 to 400 customers a day, and the hams and turkeys are in high demand around the Christmas season.
"We get to impact customers during the holiday time," Hazel said. "A lot of people don't like to cook, some don't have time to cook, and they can come here and get the whole entire meal and we make customers happy during the holiday time so that makes me happy during the holiday time."
Hazel said now after inflation, they're about $10 more, but being able to serve his community throughout the changes makes it worth it.
"Just this past year, we finally took a price increase," Hazel said. "Our customers have always been at the forefront of our decisions to raise the prices so, we held out for a long time but we had to take a small increase. Our customers still come because everything is going up. It's all about keeping families together and making sure we as a community stay together, fight this inflation and keep moving."
According to the National Retail Federation, holiday spending is expected to reach $966.6 billion this month.
Holiday shoppers are expected to spend $875 on average on gifts, decorations, food and other seasonal items.
The top five gifts shoppers plan to give are clothing, gift cards, toys and books, video games and food.