Uptown Saint John’s 2019 Holiday Wish Book Highlights Local Gifts At All Price Points
Saint John – Uptown Saint John wants its 2019 Holiday Wish Book to be the premier holiday gift guide to have at your side this holiday season, especially at its Uptown Sparkles event next week.
The wish book, which was released on Uptown Saint John’s website on Tuesday, November 26, features forty retailers in the uptown areas with hundreds of gift ideas.
“We have a lot of specialty shops, and unique shops and local businesses uptown that we wanted to help feature as part of our role as a business improvement association,” said Nancy Tissington, executive director of Uptown Saint John. “The wish book was a unique offering for us to be able to do so online, where people could browse the different categories on their devices.”
Tissington said more shops have participated in this year’s gift guide than the year previous.
“For the first wish guide last year we had about twenty-five retailers participate, and this year we have over forty,” she said.
“People realized the reach was quite good on digital, and at no cost to them. There is no fee and we hire a professional photographer, with this year’s photos taken by Jack Butler, who comes in and take photos of their goods that they want to highlight and show what they have in their stores.”
One of the shops featured in the guide this year is Rogue Coffee, a popular uptown coffee shop that also has a line of merchandise for sale.
“This year it seems like a lot more people probably wanted to participate in the Wish Book. It gets the word out especially now that Uptown Sparkles is a three-day celebration,” said Vanessa Duncan, co-owner of Rogue Coffee.
The guide is divided into categories of “$10 and under,” “$25 and under,” “$50 and under,” “$100 and under,” and “Extra special gifts” for shoppers’ budgeting needs. If a person is interested in a particular item, they can click on the image in the guide and be directed to the retailer’s website or Facebook page.
With Uptown Sparkles being a three-day event this year, Friday is the day Duncan believes retailers will see the most action.
“The amount of people that come up to Saint John has doubled almost every year. While Thursday night is being geared to a younger crowd, Friday night is like family night, from granny and grampy coming here,” she says.
“Hopefully Saturday will turn into a bigger retail day; I’m sure that is what a lot of shop owners are hoping for as well, when it’s a bit more normal and not so congested and people are actually able to sit down, have a coffee and take their time to shop.”