Richard Bestia offered sweatshirts with zombified celebrities at a booth for the first time Saturday at Ferndale's Rust Belt Market. He started Cold Eels, a brand of streetwear and provocative art, online four years ago and has depended largely on word-of-mouth marketing.
"Friends tell friends, and that's how you grow the business," said the 36-year-old from Detroit.
Bestia was among dozens of business owners across the region Saturday who hoped to lure shoppers away from big-box retailers on what has become known as Small Business Saturday. Started by American Express in 2010 and held just after Black Friday, the day is considered a boost for local entrepreneurs and shoppers.
"I think it's amazing how Detroit's economy is coming back," said Gilda Hauser of Royal Oak as she perused booths at Rust Belt Market that offered items ranging from Detroit posters and bumper stickers to antiques. "It's amazing, all the creative people."
Her date, Damian Porcari of Canton, said he intends this holiday season to buy some Shinola watches from Detroit as gifts for loved ones.
At a nearby booth, Chris Demorrow, 39, and Jaime Stark, 32, of Dearborn Heights offered preserves and sauces made with local, organic ingredients. They founded the business, Miel Sauces, less than a year ago and are working to get their product on retailers' shelves sometime soon.
Demorrow, who has worked as a chef at local restaurants, said he's excited to turn his passion for sauces into something he can call his own. The couple chose the bustling Small Business Saturday to start offering their jars of honey-ginger preserves, strawberry caramel sauce and more for sale.
Shopper Donna Pettit, 46, of Brighton said she was visiting the market for the first time Saturday after hearing about it on TV.
"I had no idea this place was here," she said.
She bought a piece of reclaimed wood to use for serving food, and she said she anticipates doing more local shopping because "it drives the local economy." She said she prefers places like Rust Belt Market to shopping malls because she can support local businesses.
Heather Rhea-Wright, 38, of Ferndale, a former housekeeper, has been able to support herself through a business she's run about for three years at the market. She offered 10% discounts on her Instagram to help entice shoppers to buy such oddities as a taxidermied baboon and sheep's hearts in jars through her Painted Lady Trashions business, website www.iamcreepy.com.
"You're not going to find something in here that you're going to find in a big chain store," she said.
In downtown Detroit, shoppers shuffled among hundreds of thousands of books at John King Used Books, open since 1965. Deborah Lee, who has worked at the store for 18 years, said the young people moving to Detroit have "helped in ways that nobody can imagine" to sustain local businesses and even local farming.
"They love small independents," she said. "They bring their friends."
Bookstore owner John King said Detroit maps from the early 1900s and city-related history books tend to sell especially well this time of year. He supports the Small Business Saturday event and said it's needed for local businesses.
"I think it's really helpful to some local merchants who are starving most of the year," he said.
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