Do you shop on Small Business Saturday?

In my family, we get started on our holiday shopping after Thanksgiving. My daughter’s family in Sacramento has a big gathering of all the families connected to the farm, so they plan for about 50 people to come to the Thanksgiving celebration and annual meeting. Needless to say, my daughter is busy, busy, busy.

So, I just sent out the email to get everyone’s holiday list. Hence, I haven’t been shopping yet and I wasn’t in line at any retail stores to get a doorbuster.

It surprised me to see the TV stories Friday evening about people lining up in the cold to get the doorbusters. I’ve never done that. I remember once asking my daughter to take me to Black Friday sales when I was visiting in Sacramento. I didn’t find any bargains at the mall. I was disappointed. Since then, I’ve just been comparing prices and shopping on line.

Small Business Saturday is expected to draw 64.4 million shoppers this year, according to the National Retail Federation. That’s only about half the shoppers as Black Friday when 132 million people were expected to shop.

The photo is downtown Olympia, Washington. I’ll take a trip to downtown this afternoon and see what’s going on. I expect to have trouble finding a place to park.

I’ll report back on what I find.

Update: There weren't huge crowds on the streets in Olympia when I went to check out Small Business Saturday. However, I did shop in two stores, and they both had a lot of customers. The clerks at Drees, which sells gifts, home furnishings, decorative accessories, fine stationery, and seasonal décor, said they'd been very busy on Small Business Saturday.

Ironic, as I started taking photos downtown, here comes an Amazon truck, a symbol of why American retail stores are struggling with so much online competition.