BUFFALO, N.Y. (WKBW) — Whether it’s on Facebook, Instagram or your web browser, Cyber Monday sales from local businesses are popping up everywhere, and local owners are trying to drive sales to the one place that is safe from a potential shutdown—the web.
“In 2019, our website was something we were working on but never forced to work on,” said Rory Allen.
For Allen, 2020 has forced his business, Zoom Buffalo to mostly online sales, and without it, Zoom wouldn’t have shipped the ever popular Governor Cuomo 11th guest Thanksgiving stickers all across the U.S.
“In all of 2019, we did $4,200 in online sales, now we do that almost daily,” he said.
Zoom Buffalo, offering 15% off Cyber Monday sales with the code WHATSGOOD2021. A very fitting code for the end of this year.
One of the items you can find on the website is the Santa-TIZER, hand sanitizer, an idea from a local 9 year-old girl.
For Melissa Whaley, owner of The Barre Studio in Buffalo, the pandemic has forced her fitness studio to close its Hamburg location, and move to an online-only model for now. She’s running a couple different offers for virtual classes.
“It’s a 45 minute class exactly the same class you take in the studio,” she said. “Part of the reason I’m doing the holiday sale is because I wanted to get a sense of are people going to support this for 3-4 months if we’re shut down,” she said.
Whaley says many people are enjoying the online classes.
For retailers like Jeffrey Morreale, owner of Buffalo Apparel Company, having a website has been key if his doors are forced to be locked.
“We did 100 events a year, so we weren’t able to do them this year. Growing online is where we need to go,” he said.
All agree shopping local and shopping early is so important this year.
