Marquette County shops have mixed reviews of this season's sales
MARQUETTE COUNTRY -- The forecast for this holiday shopping season was looking good. An early survey by the National Retail Federation showed that shoppers will spend on average $689 on holiday gifts this year. Compare that to last year, when consumers spent $682.
But what's going on in our neck of the woods? So far, are people spending more?
According to Mona Lang of the Marquette Downtown Development Authority, the answer is yes.
"We're hearing that the local businesses are having a successful holiday season, and we hope that continues," says Lang.
Lang says downtown Marquette saw a whopping 55 percent increase in turnout for the annual Ladies Night event, which set the tone for a good holiday shopping season.
But if you head west to Ishpeming, one retail manager says that the Country Village shops had a slower start to the holiday shopping season.
Michelle LaMere of Country Village says that their shops saw a 10 percent dip in Black Friday sales this year.
"A lot of the big box stores had a lot of great deals for Black Friday, so a lot of people hit those before they came to our store," says LaMere.
But the best may be yet to come.
"The holiday shopping season isn't over, so I just want to encourage residents to continue shopping locally," says Elizabeth Peterson of the Ishpeming-Negaunee Chamber of Commerce.
"As it gets closer to Christmas, people realize that they've got to finish, they've got to get done, and they realize that we're out here and we've got stuff to offer," Lamere says.
This year, Country Village is expecting a 15 percent increase in sales the week leading up to Christmas.
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