Staying close to home

MONTROSE — Just one year ago, Montrose resident Pamela Landry experienced a true nightmare before Christmas.

After hearing all of the “advantages” of online shopping, Landry opted to do her Christmas shopping on the computer. A watch, video game system, clothing and multiple other gifts were perfect for her friends and family. The problem was Landry spent a lot of money on shipping gifts that weren’t received until after Christmas.

“It was awful,” Landry said. “I had to explain to my kids Santa was running late this year. And it was embarrassing to have to call people to explain why they didn’t receive the gift my family and I bought for them. The Internet is just unreliable.”

One year later, Landry has learned her lesson and opted to stick to local shopping for Christmas purchases.

“A lot of the stores here have great things to offer,” Landry said. “Some of them even have more than you would find online or in a big chain.”

Landry is one of many locals who have chosen to do their holiday shopping in Montrose this year.

Local businesses in Montrose are doing their best to encourage residents to shop right at home.

“You can never stress enough local shopping,” said Mary Thomas, owner of Thomas Productions, located at 306 E. Main St. “When you shop at big retailers out of town, the money doesn’t stay in the community. When you shop local, the money does stay in the community.”

Thomas Productions, which has been in Montrose for 20 years, offers customers all kinds of entertainment — from a big variety of CDs, movies and T-shirts. Thomas said business is pretty consistent so far this holiday season because of good customers.

“I just think we have well established clientele, just lovely people,” Thomas said.

Productions is offering different sales throughout the holiday season to encourage shoppers to spend, including $9 T-shirts that normally cost $17.98. Thomas said she wanted to give her customers a break because of the poor economic times.

Jeans Westerner, located at 219 W. Main St. has also slashed prices in hopes of encouraging customers to spend their holiday money at the store.

Steve Omernik, Jeans Westerner president, said the company has been very promotional by offering discounts and holding evening in-store events to get the customers in the doors. He said sales have been pretty good.

“The economy is of course affecting consumers’ ability to spend money,” Omernik said. “But we have certainly seen an increase from consumers in recent years despite it.”

Jeans Westerner previously offered customers the ability to shop online through its Web site, but shut down the feature this year because it didn’t make much of a difference.

“Online is often crowded; it’s hard to standout,” Omernik said.

Omernik said the store relies on offering customers a unique shopping experience by providing close attention from employees and a much larger selection of merchandise than what big-name stores could offer.

“We’ve been operating in Montrose for 36 years,” Omernik said. “We’ve really concentrated on building quality brands not found in stores like a Sports Authority or Target.”

Cimarron Creek, located on Main Street, is dedicated to fly fishing and backpacking. The store, which also offers a variety of clothing, hopes Montrose residents will check out its deals.

“We had a local special where a lot of things were 20- to 30-percent off last Saturday,” Bob Burk, owner of Cimarron Creek said. “We had a very good response.”

Cimarron also offers reward points for customers and free holiday gift wrapping.

Burk said business is slower than previous years, but that he was hoping for the best. He said strong customer service and knowledge of the products in the store were a great advantage for customers who shopped at Cimarron and at other local stores.

“We’re like ‘Cheers’ (the longtime TV show) — everybody knows your name,” Burk said. “I just hope people stay in Montrose this year.”

Dennis Benyon, a local resident, said because Montrose is a growing community, stores here reaped the benefits.

“I’ll admit, before we had a lot stores here I would go out to Grand Junction and do all my shopping at the mall,” Benyon said. “But now that we have a lot of new stores here, I find myself doing only a little shopping at big retailers in town and spending a large portion of my holiday money at stores on Main Street. I used to feel making a big trip, I had to get all my shopping done at once. Now I take the time to check out everywhere and these local stores offer more for my dollar —better service and even more quality items.”

Contact Matt Lindberg via e-mail at mattl@montrosepress.com