Holiday Market reports brisk trade despite fewer days

By Rachana Dixit

Published: January 11, 2009

Charlottesville officials are saying that they are pleasantly surprised from the sales at the recently finished annual Holiday Market.
While the total proceeds for last year were lower than in previous years, on average shoppers spent more per day.
In 2006 and 2007, as the city’s economy thrived and when the markets were held on Fridays and Saturdays for a total of 16 days each year, the market raised more than $67,500 and $71,500, respectively.

For this season, the market was held for only five Saturdays yet garnered more than $40,400. That’s more than half of what was made last year, even though the event lasted about a third of the time.
“We expected less,” said Stephanie Maloy, the market’s manager for the city’s Department of Parks and Recreation.
Maloy said the Holiday Market has always struggled somewhat, especially next to its much more lucrative counterpart, the City Market, which is held on Saturdays from April through October and sells everything from jewelry to local produce. By that market’s end last year, it had garnered more than $1 million.
“We tried several different things trying to tweak [the Holiday] Market, to try to make it more successful for the vendors,” Maloy said.

The spending may have been influenced by the city’s free weekend parking during the holiday season.
Bob Stroh, president of the Charlottesville Parking Center and head of the Downtown Business Association, said $6,752 in free parking was provided from the Market and Water Street garages, and receipts showed that patrons spent more than $75,000 downtown on the weekends that free parking applied.
Saturday market sales figures showed that during the same five days in 2007, shoppers spent roughly $44,200 at the market on items such as wreaths, candy and ornaments. The difference from this year is less than $4,000.
Market vendor David Shalloway, a Louisa County resident who runs C-Ville Candy Co., said this year’s market appeared to be his best yet.
“Each year seems to get a little better down there,” said Shalloway, who has sold his confections in downtown Charlottesville for four years. “You hear so much about the bad economy so I was a little concerned.”
But, Shalloway said he still wished the market had not been cut down so much this past year.
Maloy said the city decided somewhat at the last minute to hold the market only on Saturdays and not start right after the regular City Market ended at the end of October, which has been done in the past.
Fridays were done away with, she said, because few shoppers attended the market that day. In 2007, about 25 percent of that year’s total proceeds came from shoppers purchasing items on Fridays.

“People didn’t make money,” Maloy said.
Louisa County resident Amanda Welch, who has sold items such as bath salts and homemade soaps from her business, Grubby Girl, agreed.

“It made more sense to have it more concentrated on the Saturdays because Fridays were pretty much a bust day,” said Welch, who has participated in the market for five years.
Welch thinks the economy has forced people to cut back on luxury spending, something that does not apply to most of the Holiday Market’s goods — she said nothing she sells exceeds $30. Shalloway said everything from his candy company goes for $10 or less.
“People weren’t spending big money,” Welch said.