It’s the most wonderful time of the year: the shopping marathon. From Black Friday, to Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday, the benefits are endless for shoppers and business owners a like.

The weekend after Thanksgiving comes with big sales for businesses. Cyber Monday in particular has become popular for shoppers who don’t want to face the masses at malls. The billion-dollar shopping day has increased over the years. In 2018, shoppers spent an estimated $146.5 billion on Cyber Monday. And this year, the projected spending will be over $160 billion.

“I went online to my favorite stores and did virtual shopping” said Michelle Adams, an employee at Onward Reserve.

In order to compete with large retail stores, local Dallas businesses have implemented new, exciting promotions each year to drive traffic to their websites throughout the day.

“We switch it up every year so that people don’t know or wait around,” said Cotton Island’s owner Lauren Feinstein. “We are having a Cyber Monday sale and usually we do pretty well online.”

“We had an extra gift card if you went through the website, but we also matched it with 20% off in the store,” said Adams.

Some stores even used social media to remind customers to shop.

“We post on our Instagram,” said Paige Avery an employee at L. Bartlett. “We post little adds on it letting out customers know that they can shop with us and that there is a discount.”

The big sales may be over, but the holiday shopping is just beginning. There are tons of local businesses right next to SMU’s campus in Snider Plaza. For a full list of store, visit Snider Plaza’s website: http://sniderplaza.net/