December was one of the busiest shopping months for downtown Butler businesses
Although there were only a few people milling about the shops on Butler’s Main Street on Saturday, Dec. 27, the afternoon was like a well-deserved break for the shop owners, several of whom said the rest of the month had seen record-breaking sales.
The holiday shopping season was so successful for Main Level Games, a video game store on the 200 block of Main Street, that the shop will permanently be open six days a week instead of five — a schedule it has maintained since it opened in 2023.
“It was pretty wild,” Evan Miranda, owner of Main Level Games, said of December. “This was the best holiday season we had out of the three of them. Even the (Mondays) I’m typically closed we did really well.”
Miranda said the start to the busy season coincided with Small Business Saturday and Butler’s Spirit of Christmas parade. The holiday season is a good for repeat shoppers at Main Level Games, Miranda said, but also new shoppers who discover the store via “foot traffic.”
“We do about 65% returning or out-of-town customers... 35% is just through foot traffic,” Miranda said. “Every event in town we end up doing well.”
Foot traffic seems to have a compounding effect, as experienced by the businesses around Main Level Games and the rest of Main Street. Just next door to Main Level is Two Twenty-Nine Clothing & Home, where the manager said downtown events and the promotion of Small Business Saturday net the store a crowded floor.
Two Twenty-Nine opened in November 2024, so Macaiah Lenhart, the shop’s manager, said she and the staff were not sure how popular holiday shopping would be at the store.
“I think December naturally is the time when a lot of people go shopping but we weren’t sure what a normal year would be like for us,” Lenhart said. “I think it was our best month; it’s really exciting to see new people come in.”
Lenhart also said Small Business Saturday might have been the single busiest day of the year at Two Twenty-Nine, which was unexpected despite the growing number of shops in Butler’s Main Street.
People who visited the store in December were typically looking for gifts like candles, but also vintage clothing and outfits, which the shop helps curate.
“We have a lot of home goods and candles and antique sweaters,” Lenhart said. “We try to pair things together so people will know how they look and how they go together.”
Another clothing store on Main Street, Branded in Butler, had one of its busiest months as well. The store has been open for six years, but Lance Calvert, its owner, said there was a 65% increase in sales the week of Black Friday compared to the same period last year. He said the only time that competes with this month is the long running Jeep Invasion that comes to Butler each June.
Calvert attributes some of the rise in sales to the increased popularity of secondhand clothing, which the store specializes in.
“Buying secondhand has become a lot more acceptable,” Calvert said. “It’s more unique, it’s things you can’t get at a big box store. If it’s lasted this long it’s more likely to last even more years.”
Calvert also said the shop had been populated by people buying for themselves and others over the holiday. On the southern end of Main Street, Calvert’s wife and fellow shop owner, Dorothy Calvert, said her store, Dorothy’s Herb Shop and Herbal Apothecary, saw shoppers with similar goals in mind.
Dorothy’s Herb Shop is one of three shops housed in the Shops on West Diamond. She said having three stores under one roof helps them each do well year-round, but December was and is usually their best sales month.
“Small Business Saturday was fantastic,” Dorothy Calvert said. “We were able to do some things as a group and it was great.”
Meredith Reed owns the Appalachian Rock Shop, another one of the businesses in the Shops on West Diamond. She surmised that small businesses tend to do well when it comes to Christmas shoppers because the items on sale are more personalized and cannot be found just anywhere.
“I feel like we do have a lot of gifty things,” Reed said. “Around the holidays people are looking for bigger things and everything here is one-of-a-king.”
Miranda, too, said the hunt for the perfect gift seems to bring people in to the small shops more often. Main Level Games is a video game sale and resale store, and Miranda said shoppers may come in seeking a vintage game or periphery from their childhood, and are overjoyed to find it.
Lance Calvert said as a clothing resale shop, a similar principle applies.
“Maybe someone’s dad went to Montour and played for the soccer team and they find a sweatshirt to give them as a gift,” he said.
