Holiday shopping season in full swing, BBB offers tips to protect your money

WESTERVILLE, Ohio — The holiday shopping season is in full swing. Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday all promise deals and unique gifts for the shopper.

Uptown Westerville is home to a number of local shops offering gifts and trinkets that can’t be found anywhere else. The holiday shopping season is their busiest time of year.

“We start getting our Christmas stock in July. So we start unpacking that, we hold it, we do a big Christmas open house the first weekend in November,” said Amy Winter Cabilovski, owner of Edwin Loy Home and Stone and Sparrow. “Really that November 1 till Christmas, it is so busy, our largest and busiest time of the year.”

She said Small Business Saturday continues to gain momentum and brings in more shoppers every year.

“We had a lady that came in over the weekend and just said that she was loving our ornaments that she couldn’t find anything at the other stores and came back to really kind of find that unique ornaments that we have,” Winter Cabilovski said.

Across the street, Pure Roots curates a selection of items made by local artists.

“I love the fact that not only are you supporting a local shop, but you’re supporting local families,” said Nicole Harrison, Pure Roots owner. “I always tell people, especially if they like, they get five or six things, I’m like, you just supported five different artists that you might see in the grocery store today.”

Harrison said shopping small is important and gaining popularity. Her shop was busy over the weekend with shoppers hunting for something different or unique.

For those not wanting to leave the house to get gifts, Cyber Monday is for the online shopper. The National Retail Federation expected 76 million people to shop Cyber Monday 2025. However, it’s also primed for scams according to the Better Business Bureau.

“Be careful with those quick links that you see on those social media posts and ads,” said Judy Dollison, president and CEO of the Better Business Bureau of Central Ohio. “They will oftentimes take you to fake websites.”

There are a few tips Dollison offered to the online shopper:

• Check the spelling of the web address. Is it correct?
• Look for “ The “s” stands for secure and she says if there isn’t an “s,” you shouldn’t put your credit card information into the site.
• Always shop online with a credit card. Credit cards offer ways to get your money back if something goes wrong.
• Debit cards and checking accounts should be treated like cash. Once it’s been given to a website, consider it gone with few options to get it back.

“If there’s a deal that sounds too good to be true, it probably is,” said Dollison. “When there’s a hot toy or a hot item and it’s sold out everywhere, but there’s a special deal on a link that you see on a social media post, then that’s probably taking you to a scam website.”

Ordering online means plenty of boxes and envelopes with personal information on the label.

“You should always remove those labels if you’re going to take that to a recycle bin or even in your trash can. You’ll want to have the address and your name off of the packages,” she said.