Winona businesses gear up for holiday season
Winona, MN — Tractors, board games, dolls and more stocked the shelves of Fleet Farm’s “Toyland,” which opened Saturday morning in preparation for the holiday shopping season.
While it might be early to be thinking of wreaths and Christmas trees — Halloween is still two weeks away, afterall — the holiday shopping section was packed with shoppers making early buys and browsing this year’s hot toy items.
Dwayne Tjerstad has worked at Fleet Farm for 10 years and says the holiday transition is the store’s biggest product shift of the year. It took about a month to prepare the aisles of toys.
Fleet Farm sets up “Toyland” about the same time every year.
Scott Jacobson is an assistant manager at the store and says “Toyland” is the largest toy display in town.
“You go anywhere else around here and you won’t find the big selection of toys that we have,” Jacobson said.
He predicts shoppers will flood the store this week. Thanksgiving through Christmas is also a busy shopping time, he said.
One popular item that goes fast is the Ertl collectible tractors. Jacobson said they draw a lot of people at the Winona store probably because of the rural region.
“People are familiar with the machinery,” he said.
Jacobson and Tjerstad said they don’t think there’s a particular toy so far this season that’s this year’s it toy.
“I haven’t seen anybody fighting over anything yet,” he said.
Fleet Farm isn’t the only business in Winona gearing up for Christmas.
