Businesses put their best deals forward on Friday, Nov. 22 for the third annual Cranbrook Black Friday event. All through town businesses slashed their prices and offered deals in hopes of boosting up local spending. Organizers said the event went great.
Joey Hoechsmann, chair of the Cranbrook Black Friday committee, said that the local businesses stepped up involvement this year.
"I think it went really good. We definitely had more businesses than last year," he said. "It's our biggest participation year ever."
There were well over 50 businesses that took the time to register and even more that jumped on just to be a part of the day, said Hoechsmann.
This is the event's third year and he hopes that the event will continue next year.
"It's part of the whole big picture," he said about the yearly tradition, and it falls in line with the Chamber of Commerce's mandate, "to create awareness of local business and think about where we're spending our money.
"I think it created a lot of conversations around that as well and that's always good."
Hoechsmann said that while he didn't have exact figures, anecdotally the number of consumers coming through the door was definitely up at his business, Bedroom Furniture Galleries.
"We had huge numbers through our store over the weekend," he said.
He heard similar stories from other businesses around town.
For instance, he spoke to a local car dealer who couldn't believe the good day they had. And many other businesses he spoke to echoed that pleasant surprise about how well the day went.
Downtown parking was free and so that was also sighted as a key to bringing people around there to browse the shops.
The other tight knitting of businesses was the Tamarack Mall.
Hoechsmann said he was impressed that so many businesses got together on one day to pull off the event.
"I think it's pretty neat to have an initiative that is just for Cranbrook," he said.
The number of participating businesses has been going up steadily, with 25 taking part the first year, 50 last year and at least 54 this year.
"I think it's safe to say it was wildly successful," he said." We're really happy with how it went."
The event was thought up four years ago at Bedroom.
"Black Friday was a big phenomenom in the States so we tried to adjust our two stores a week early four years ago and had really good success with it," Hoechsmann said.
"We started brainstorming and thought it would be great if we could get other businesses involved in this."
When other businesses heard about it, they put it forward as a Chamber initiative and brought it there.
"They thought it was a great idea," he said. "We have more and more people involved now and more and more professionals."
The website that was started up for this year's event, www.cranbrookblackfriday.ca, lists all the businesses that took part in the initiative.
The website also has a feedback submission button for businesses or consumers who wish to comment on the event.
Hoechsmann wanted to thank all the businesses that participated.
"And most importantly the people of Cranbrook that came out and supported the initiative and spent some money locally," he said.