The streets of Houston hummed with a local entrepreneurial spirit this past Small Business Saturday, as nearly 100 vendors from diverse crafts and enterprises set up shop at the Vibe Artisan Market. The town square of Sugar Land became the nucleus for this congregation of creativity and commerce, all thanks to an initiative started by Christina Terry and her husband in 2020. According to KHOU, Terry emphasized their family-owned business's mission is "to make sure we're putting all of our efforts and backgrounds into helping these artists."
These local markets not only provide a platform for entrepreneurs to showcase their products but also create an opportunity for the community to support and engage with them directly. Melisa Eckelbarger, a former science teacher who now co-runs Clay Cactus Soapery with her husband, told KHOU, "Most of the time we like coming out here and talking to the people, it's very hard to smell soap through the internet." Their sentiment underscores the value of in-person interactions, which can to be often miss in an increasingly online marketplace.
Further afield, in the Cooper Young community, shoppers encountered another array of unique products at the Cooper Gallery and Gift Shop, one of many establishments hoping to thrive during the bustling holiday season. "We also like to shop locally. We've bank locally, repay local property taxes, we pay local sales tax," Junie Morrison, owner of the gift shop, explained to WREG. This illustrates a circular economic benefit where spending locally contributes directly back to community infrastructure and services.
Demonstrating the broader impact, a 2023 report commissioned by American Express projected US consumers were set to spend approximately 17 billion dollars on Small Business Saturday. As shop owners and artists like Zaycha Mitchell, of Made by Zaycha, who told KHOU that "even in the smallest, a $5 item and $10 item might not mean a lot to a big corporation, but it means a lot here, and all of that adds up to support the small business," the ongoing support of the community is vital for the survival and success of small businesses year-round. Terry punctuated this status quo by urging customers, "We definitely want to encourage people to not just shop small businesses today, but every single day of the year."
