CINCINNATI — Thousands of small businesses across Ohio are ramping up for the holiday season.

On Tuesday, the Ohio Council of Retail Merchants along with the University of Cincinnati Economic Center revealed during a press conference that holiday retail sales are forecasted to increase by 3.4% in 2022 over 2021.

What You Need To Know

  • Local businesses hope more people will shop locally this season

  • Set the Vibez in Cincinnati have been gearing up for the holidays for the past month or so

  • Stats also show that e-commerce is increasingly more popular among customers than shopping in person. 

Local businesses, like the Set the Vibez in Cincinnati’s College Hill neighborhood, are hoping for a successful holiday season.

Set the Vibes is a shop where guests can find anything from festive candles to other novelties, and anyone who knows Erika Standifer knows she loves to be creative. So when her grandma asked her to work on a special project in 2020, she jumped on it.

“I've always been the person to decorate for whatever event we're having,” said Standifer. “I'm so extra. So she asked me to make something for her for someone and I did.”

Little did she know this would turn into a full-time career.

“My business took off then,” she said. “And because I went into a building where I delivered something and like, neighbors was just like, wait, you deliver balloons? And I was like, yeah I can.”

For the past month or so, she and her team have been gearing up for the busy holiday season.

“We ordered a lot of it, but we are also marking down prices down, of course, for Black Friday,” she said. “But then we have to stock up on our custom items because that is like a fan favorite here. And it's kind of hard because you never know what someone want. People from last year have already started putting their orders in for this year because of the experience that they had with us last year during COVID."

But stats also show that e-commerce is increasingly more popular among customers than shopping in person. But Standifer said that’s not a deterrent at all for her this year.

“Amazon is (the) internet. You're not going to come in and meet someone who's as bubbly as we are, who's going to take our time and make sure that we do it right the first time,” she said. “You don't have to worry about sending things back with us. You call me and you tell us exactly what we want and we deliver on it.”​