While Marshall students enjoyed their snow days , local businesses stayed open to service the community last week. However, the community was not necessarily visiting these businesses.

Vince Hebert, owner of Now Hear This, a record store located at 1454 4th Avenue, said the snow greatly affected the number of people who came into his shop.

“It was a ghost town,” Hebert said.

He said the typical makeup of customers is half students and half regulars or people who work downtown. A normal day sees at least 50 people come in to browse or shop, Hebert said.

However, last week, Herbert said there was “only one customer over the course of two days.”

He said the store continued to be impacted through Friday, which is normally Now Hear This’s busiest day.

“Normally, Friday is our busiest day, but it turned out to be like a normal weekday,” Hebert said.

It was back to normal for the shop by Sunday, and Hebert said it was extremely busy.

“Come Sunday, when everybody’s cabin fever kicked in, and they needed to get out,” Herbert said, “it was the busiest Sunday we’ve ever had.”

Another business, only half a mile down the road, did not have as hard of a time during the snow. True Soul Boutique, located at 905 4th Avenue, was closed two days last week,yet still was able to turn a profit.

The owner, Rebecca Thomas, said while the number of people who shopped at the boutique last week was less than normal, they still had good sales.

“Monday definitely was a lot slower. There were about five customers, but they all spent money. We actually did good on that day,” Thomas said.

The boutique was closed on Tuesday and Friday due to the snow.

“I would have come down and opened the store … but I did not want to make the employees come in and then pay payroll when I didn’t even know what it would be like,” Thomas said.

Though True Soul Boutique was closed on Friday, Thomas still sold some of her merchandise through an online sale.

“I pushed that on Friday,” Thomas said. “Anything online, it’s 25% off.”

While the online sale is no longer going on, Thomas highlighted other promotions at the boutique.

Thomas said Marshall students and faculty can get 15% off their purchase at the boutique every Monday.

She also highlighted her upcoming Galentine’s Day event, where the entire store is buy one, get one half off.

Thomas said the store was “very busy” on Saturday, and she attributed this to the community having a desire to support local businesses.

“You know, we really have a good community here,” Thomas said. “People like to support local. I saw a lot of people make posts about, you know, now that the snow has melted, go support those restaurants, go support those small shops. I feel like that’s been really helpful and just getting it in people’s brains.”