Sonoma County small-business owners aiming for brick-and-mortar shop sales turn to pop-ups, storefronts

It’s no secret that the holiday season allows retailers to make up any revenue lost throughout the year.

And with more consumers wanting to shop local and in-person this year, small-business owners are looking to get their products in front of those shoppers for big holiday sales -- starting with Black Friday, but continuing throughout December.

Even if that means switching from digital sales to physical, brick-and-mortar shops.

Brooke Gabrielian started her jewelry business falling for dainty in 2018, selling her handmade jewelry on her website and through an Etsy shop as a way to pay for college.

She also would take her creations to local craft fairs and markets so customers could see her products in person.

Because of how much her business grew and curiosity from customers asking where she was headquartered, Gabrielian opened her first physical location in Healdsburg in early November in time for the holiday shoppers.

“I needed to have a home base so people can come grab gifts versus trying to find me at a craft market,” Gabrielian said. “Last-minute gifts can be challenging with shipping and coming into the store so it’s much more convenient for people.”

While some businesses are ready to jump from going to artisan markets and online sales to a physical storefront, others aren’t quite ready to make that jump.

David Hamelburg is the owner of The Community Shops in Windsor, a marketplace that has been open for about nine months where small business owners can rent out a temporary booth space and bring their sales to a physical store space.

The space, located inside the Raley’s in Windsor, lets small business owners who mostly did business online, or didn’t have an online presence at all, bring their sales to an in-person setting to sell their goods.

Hamelburg said The Community Shops also add a mentoring aspect to help get their business owners on their feet, even allowing student entrepreneurs to set up shop and take advantage of revenue opportunities.

“We do some marketing, bring in some consultants to help (the businss owners) out,” Hamelburg said.

Julie Montgomery is the current owner of Kindred Fair Trade, a gift shop that sells handmade goods from artisan makers around the world, which for nearly 20 years was housed in downtown Santa Rosa.

She closed the doors to Kindred Fair Trade’s physical location in early February and went exclusively online after she felt that downtown Santa Rosa wasn’t recovering enough for her business to thrive.

But Montgomery didn’t want to miss out on the revenue opportunities that come with having a physical store space and opened a pop-up shop in The Community Shops at Windsor.

“The vast majority of my annual revenue comes from the holiday season and it just seemed wise to spend a lot of energy and resources during this time frame,” she said.

“The holidays are when the majority of people are shopping at my store so I’d be foolish to not try to find a spot to capture that revenue.”

Both Gabrielian and Montgomery said their main strategies for getting people into their storefronts is through social media.

Gabrielian said she spends the majority of her time using her Instagram to bring potential customers into the store and promote her online sales.

She’s also tailored in the fact that her shop is in downtown Healdsburg to appeal to community members and encourage them to make a day out of coming to her shop.

Montgomery used to do advertising over the radio and in papers, but has since scaled back to using social media and hyper focusing on customers in Windsor and parts of Santa Rosa and Cloverdale.

Montgomery also said she’s been thinking about moving back to an in-person space for a while, but wanted to test out her business at The Community Shops for the holidays to see if it would be worth it to go back to an in-person and online business model.

“The beautiful thing about being in the collective space is it provides perfect flexibility,” Montgomery said.

You can reach Staff Writer Sara Edwards at 707-521-5487 or sara.edwards@pressdemocrat.com. Follow her on Twitter @sedwards380.