Small Business Saturday: Astoria Shops Host Online Retail Crawl

ASTORIA, QUEENS — Astoria's independent retailers have moved their annual retail crawl online to encourage their neighbors to do their holiday shopping at local businesses while staying safe in the pandemic.

Shop Small Astoria, a collective of local businesses organized by The Brass Owl's Nicole Panettieri, will host an online shopping event all weekend in honor of Small Business Saturday, according to a news release.

Ten retailers are participating in the event:

• Astoria Bookshop
• The Brass Owl
• Earth and Me
• Gamestoria
• Incasa
• Lavender Label
• Lockwood
• Newtown HQ
• QED
• Side B

Customers who shop at five or more of the participating stores will get a free tote bag.

Panettieri founded Shop Small Astoria in 2015 "to unite the local boutiques in the neighborhood and promote the amazing shopping opportunities we have here," she said.

Since then, the group has hosted an in-person retail crawl to support local businesses on Small Business Saturday, a shopping holiday that falls the day after Black Friday — but they decided to pivot due to the pandemic.

"With all of us adjusting to the new normal, so will our event," Panettieri wrote in a news release. "While many of these brick-and-mortar stores will be open and need support, for the safety of our community we could not promote an event that draws large crowds indoors."