Holiday markets: big business for small business.

• Author: O'Connell, Dianne
• Position: GENERAL BUSINESS - Webb's Consulting and Management Services Inc.

Hundreds of holiday elves in cottages throughout Alaska are busy baking, sewing, designing and building, snapping and framing, even trapping and tanning--getting ready to sell their wares to thousands of shoppers from across Alaska. The Dena'ina Civic and Convention Center in Anchorage is among dozens of venues for holiday bazaars and fairs throughout Alaska. The holidays are big business for these Alaskan entrepreneurs--and most are expecting a decent year.

HOLIDAY SHOWS

"My sales have been doing nothing but growing," says Lisa Greenwood, owner of Twinkle Toes and Wild Outer Wear. "The holiday craft and gift shows account for the lion's share of my business. Where else would thousands of people drop by in a day to check out your merchandise? I can always sell more than I can make."

"The same goes for Tonia Winkler and her biscottis," comments Bill Webb, owner of Webb's Consulting and Management Services Inc., the company that owns and operates three different holiday shows as well as the summer Anchorage Market and Festival. "I'll drop by her booth and ask where Tonia is--only to be told that she is home baking. The biscottis come in still warm."

While Tonia warms the tummy, Greenwood warms the toes. Lisa stitches colorful, stay-on baby booties from her home in Wasilla. She markets the footwear as "all-terrain socks" which she invented when her oldest child, now 19, was just a toddler. She began selling the tiny footwear at gift shows a couple years later and now markets socks in 13 sizes, along with hats and custom-designed appliqued jackets.

The infant socks sell for $14 a pair, while men's sizes go for $25. The wind-block designer jackets run from $150 to $350 each.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

With a serger sewing machine in her bedroom and a large cutting table in her living room, the artist/seamstress sews four hours to five hours a day, taking special care with each pair of slipper-socks.

"The design on the toes has to match, for instance," Greenwood said. "I enjoy the colors and the fabric because they make people happy."

Operating without a Web site or even fliers, Greenwood makes contacts during the holiday shows and the summer markets in Anchorage, and fills orders from around the country, throughout the year.

A small retail business is defined by the U.S. Small Business Administration as one with less than 100 employees and which grosses less than $7 million a year. Greenwood and her colleagues definitely fit the bill.

"I've talked...