By Kyle Vuille
Ranger-Review Staff Writer
With the Christmas shopping spree in the rearview mirror now, some of Glendive’s retailers said their holidays were about par with last year’s shopping season, most claiming it was another good season.
Harold Simard, owner of Ranch and Farm ACE Hardware with his wife Judy, said the store saw a lot of traffic before the holiday with consumers buying lots of scarves and winter clothing as well as items previously bought at Kmart like Hanes underwear, home goods and bathroom accessories.
“The cold weather before Christmas helped because it got people wanting to shop indoors,” Simard said.
Harold said some of Ranch and Farm’s best-selling toys were some of the simplest items including kinetic sand and Aaron’s Thinking Putty.
He added the store will continue to expand their inventory to fit the community’s needs and they are more than happy to order anything they can for customers.
Gail Mayer, office manager of Runnings in Glendive, also said the holiday season was kind to the retail store.
Mayer said something that was different this year was a special stock of loveseats and recliners the store got in before Black Friday. She said the loveseats were sold out by the end of that weekend and continued with the sale of recliners all the way through Christmas.
She said another hot seller this season was a set of Copperware pots and pans because there were a lot of advertisements for a similar “As Seen on TV” copper pot and pan set.
She added the air fryers flew off Runnings’ shelves as well as toys and clothing selling well as they always do before Christmas.
Koch Furniture owner Chuck Bondley said his store’s sales seem to be even with last year’s holiday sales.
He said one of the items that starts selling mid-October all the way to February is the remote-controlled electric fireplaces.
“It’s particularly one of our good items,” Bondley said.
He noted that items like recliners and beds aren’t really affected by online shopping because people like to come in and actually lay down on the bed they saw online or sit in the chair they saw through the web.
“About 75 percent of people who come into our store have already looked online,” Bondley said.
Another retail store and new comer for the Glendive community this holiday season was the Kirke Kollective. According to owner Kara Schultz, the community was great in its support of the new business and many local vendors she carried were well received.
Schultz mentioned Rita’s Rugs, Jill and Mary’s signs and Fuglywear as just some of the items that sold well. These items are all made in Glendive.
“The locals are always popular,” Schultz said.
Schultz said the Kirke will continue to showcase new, local talent and fill the niche Glendive needs.
Online shoppers kept local package delivery services busy.
UPS public relations manager Matthew O’Conner said the focus now that the holiday season is over is the returning of online purchases.
He said UPS popularized the idea of National Returns Day — the day the largest volume of packages are returned to retailers. He said the number of returned packages has consistently increased over the past several years.
UPS is currently shipping more than a million returns a day and expects to ship 1.4 million returned packages on Jan. 3. In a recent UPS study, 75 percent of online shoppers said they’ve sent back a package to a retailer.
Reach Kyle Vuille at
news@rangerreview.com.