Holiday season has small businesses owners ‘nervous’
Wallingford, CT – Running Simply Special has been a dream come true for Geri Wasilewski. She opened the gift shop in Madison in 2001, but moved it to Wallingford about a year later. In Madison, her shop was one of several. In her home town, she’s special.
“To tell you the truth, I did much better here,” said Wasilewski, who grew up in town and went to Lyman Hall High School.
Wasilewski says her business, on North Colony Road, has done well even in the face of increasing competition from big box stores. That’s because her shop is unique, she says, offering specialty items with a personal touch.
But, as the nation’s economy has soured, the last year or so has been hard.
“We’ve felt the difference, big time,” she said.
Now Wasilewski faces the most crucial time period for her business, the Christmas shopping season.
The increasingly woeful economy has forecasters anticipating the worst holiday shopping season in decades. It’s hardly surprising if small business owners, particularly those who, like Wasilewski, depend on healthy holiday sales, are on edge.
“Oh, yeah, it makes you very nervous,” she said. “You just have to wait and see how it goes. With the economy the way it is we have to hope for the best.”
Today’s economy is an equal-opportunity threat, affecting businesses both large and small.
But small independent business is the backbone of state and national commerce, so when the well-being of small business is in jeopardy there’s more at stake, suggests Kimberley Parsons-Whitaker, associate director of Connecticut Main Street Center.
“The sustainability of a community rests in large part on the success of local business,” she said.
