HOLIDAY SHOPPING

There are more than 120 vendors offering unique gourmet foods, fashion, art, and more

Each holiday season tends to produce different fads -- ones that sometimes make people say, “Why in the world was that so popular?”

Downtown Roanoke Inc. is making it easier than ever to shop for gifts this holiday season with their new gift guide. The Downtown Roanoke Holiday Gift Guide showcases local businesses and their products that would make great gifts this holiday season.

Local businesses across Southwest Virginia are getting ready for Small Business Saturday and the holiday shopping season.

LYNCHBURG, Va. – Like many things, Christmas Eve shopping looked different this year because of COVID-19, but at the River Ridge Mall in Lynchburg, there was still a deadline dash for deals. Louise Dudley, the mall’s general manager, said that impacted this year’s Christmas Eve crowd. Inside the mall, 10 News witnessed many shoppers wearing masks, maintaining social distancing and using hand sanitizer; while there were some lines outside of stores. But not as packed as other shoppers thought. I thought it would be really crazy out here today,” added Quinton Cox.”The River Ridge Mall is closed on Christmas Day.

One of our favorite TV deals yet ... also from Target. You might even be able to get deals up to 70% off on select items (plus free shipping). At Levi’s, the company is offering 40% off full-priced items and an extra 50% off on sale items, plus free shipping when you enter CYBER. Forbes put out a handy list of the best Cyber Monday deals, which included this great find. We could round up TV deals all day.

This year’s Black Friday was the biggest ever for online sales, as fewer people hit the stores and shoppers rang up $7.4 billion in transactions from their phones, computers and tablets. That’s just behind the $7.9 billion haul of last year’s Cyber Monday, which holds the one-day record for online sales, according to Adobe Analytics. Adobe expects online sales to jump to another record this Cyber Monday with an estimated total of $9.4 billion. Much of the shopping is happening on people’s phones, which accounted for 39% of all online sales Friday and 61% of online traffic. All the online shopping may have helped thin the crowd at malls on Black Friday.