Owning a small business comes with its challenges. 

But the holiday shopping season can be a welcome gift for many Chicago small business owners. 

There was some good news this year. According to Mastercard Spending Pulse, retail shopping was up about 3% this holiday season compared to last year. 

Nika Vaughan is the founder of Plant Salon, a shop offering plants and self care products with locations in West Town and Bucktown. She said the store received an uptick of holiday traffic.

“We had a lot of folks that are focused on gifts,” Vaughan said. “So they totally appreciated self care, and they wanted to share it.”

This comes despite concerns over rising costs for essential goods, lowering consumers' ability to spend money on gifts or non-essential goods.

“Gift cards was huge for us,” Vaughan said. “I think people that were like, wanting to support small business and thinking like ‘I don't even have time to go buy the candle, buy the small house plant,’ but I'm going to go place an order online. And that was really huge for us.”

Marva Cooksey owns Next Man Up, a spa for men offering services such as manicures, pedicures, massages and more. She echoed Vaughan’s feelings. Many clients were willing to spend the extra money for more services.

“Most of the people who were coming in for packages, they weren't just coming in to get just one service for whoever they were personally buying for,” Cooksey said. “They were even purchasing my top priced package which is $350.”

Looking ahead, both businesses are planning to offer more deals and experiences to encourage clients and customers to come back well beyond the new year.

“We have a lot of other small businesses that will use our space for their own team building events,” Vaughan said. “And so it's more ways to introduce people to our shop.”