Black Friday or Cyber Monday? Stroll the mall or surf the web? This holiday gifting season, shoppers all over the country face the choice between shopping online and shopping in-person. Recent trends point to an emerging preference for e-commerce.
In the third quarter of 2024, U.S. retail e-commerce sales amounted to over $300 billion, a 7.4% increase from the same season in 2023, according to a report from the U.S. Census Bureau. In Providence, brick-and-mortar businesses are feeling the impacts.
Rachel Chevrette, co-owner of Four Buds Floral Studio on Wickenden Street, said that Small Business Saturday, an annual nationwide spending holiday aimed at promoting small businesses, “was an absolute bust. We had nobody.”
Some Providence shoppers cited money as a major reason for online shopping, and added that convenience is a major factor as well. Eloise Mahoney, a Providence shopper, said there are times when she chooses to buy things through Amazon because “it’s just going to be way easier.”
“But I try not to,” Mahoney, who owns her own small business, added. “I try to shop at the little stores.”
When time is not a concern, Zero Waste Providence Projects Coordinator Carla Doughty said she prioritizes “local, small-scale, handmade, locally sourced goods.”
“But there are certain things where convenience just has to happen,” she added.
Doughty said she advises against relying on online, cheap factory retailers. “A lot of times the lowest price we’re going to find will be through a huge box store or through a Black Friday deal on Amazon, but I think it’s important to step back and consider the true cost of items,” she said.
Shopping in person is an opportunity to receive “impeccable customer service,” Chevrette said. “You’re getting a quality product. You’re not getting stuff that’s been shipped to 100 million stores on the East Coast and has been in a truck for a week.”
At the same time, Chevrette appreciates what the spike in online shopping tendencies has done for her business, especially as a shop that sells a perishable product.
“We have competition with surrounding flower shops and that sort of thing,” she said. But when compared with clothing and gift stores who face competition with larger online retailers, “it’s a little different because, like food, it’s a specialty product,” she said.
Wendy Canniff works for Gallery Belleau, a gallery filled with glass artwork on Wickenden Street. Shipping fragile glass pieces can be difficult, and sales have fallen due to a lack of customers willing to shop in person, she said.
“It’s really sad that people are choosing to click and ship,” Canniff added. “They’re losing the tactile experience of shopping.”
Fast fashion and shipping release “massive greenhouse gases that cause an increase in the speed at which climate change is happening,” Doughty said.
She added that one of her solutions is to limit the distance those goods need to travel. “The smaller the travel footprint our goods can make, the better it is for our environment,” she said, and “there are so many options in a brilliant city like Providence.” Doughty cited shops on Westminster, Broadway and Brook streets, as well as thrift stores and item swaps as “lovely” brick-and-mortar options that make shopping local in Providence feasible.
Doughty suggested that most of the time, there is no need to purchase anything at all. “There’s a lot of ways to give without accumulating stuff,” she said. “Last year, I gave my nephew a rock and he loved it just as much as he loved his virtual reality headset.”
“There’s so much opportunity to buy a really interesting, unique, thoughtful gift, or create one, or invest in a group that you believe in,” Doughty said.
Maya Kelly is a metro editor who covers community, crime and activism as well as business and development. When she's not at The Herald, you can find her hanging from an aerial silk, bullet journaling, or stress-baking.
