Shop Small Crawl gets a mixed response from downtown merchants - runs through to September 5th

By Max Bowder: Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

August 26, 2021

BURLINGTON, ON

 

Brant street is home to numerous small businesses that have fought hard to stay alive as business entities during the Covid Pandemic.

To encourage customers to continue shopping at these businesses the Burlington Downtown Business Association created a late summer promotion called the Shop Small Crawl that has over 35 businesses participating in the down town area with gifts ranging from free $50 gift cards to $500 grand prizes.

“It’s a great multi level networking concept so all the businesses are really together,” said ODDSPOT store manager Rich Marcone.

The promotion in its earliest days was said to bring in lot of eager customers from both in and out of Burlington attracting age groups from teens to mid 40’s.

Its reaching clients from a larger area and not just local,” said Natasha Farley of lingerie D’Amour.

The Shop Small Crawl has been running since August 21st and will continue until September 5th.

“Definitely the first day, I saw a lot of people interested in it the first day (August 21st),” said Julia Smith of Cento Gardens.

After the weekend passed businesses were expecting the promotion to keep bringing in more customers but due to Covid paranoia as well as most people keeping busy with work throughout the week, business in stores has slowed down to the pace it was at before Shop Small Crawl happened.

Some businesses say that the promotion had little effect on the traffic that comes through their area; most rely on their local and loyal customers.

“I haven’t necessarily seen a huge uptick in clients in association with it,” said Burlington Physiotherapy & health clinic employee Kate Reeds.

Despite the low turn outs, the Brant St. businesses are still optimistic about the campaign bringing in more business while others feel that the campaign was effective for a little while but not strong enough to bring big turnout after getting to the middle of the week.

“It’s a great benefit for everyone involved,” said Joe Dogs Gasbar Grill manager Adona Brown.

Businesses such as Cento Gardens continue to promote the Shop Small Crawl with social media promotions.

“We are putting it on our Instagram,” said Jennifer Klassen of Cento Gardens.

All Brant Street businesses say despite the staggering success of the campaign it was a very good way to support small, local businesses and hope that the Burlington Downtown association create make more programs like this in order to keep small businesses afloat during the Covid pandemic.

“We always support these programs because its downtown and all the businesses downtown work together on this … anything related to downtown we will support,” said Klassen.

Clothing stores in the Brant street area are having continued success with their online offerings selling to loyal customers.

“We’ve had online business that helped quite a bit,” said Ally Tesoni of Joelle’s.

Brant street businesses have felt connected to each other not only because of the program; they are all struggling to not go bankrupt.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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