Local businesses have felt some strain this year with rising costs, changing tariffs and customers pulling back on spending. Overall, the year has been flat for three longtime local businesses as they work to engage customers in the ways they know best. 

Two sisters are welcoming customers to Ink Drinkers Bookshop’s first holiday season at a storefront at 309 W. Kennewick Ave. in downtown Kennewick. They aren’t the only ones betting on downtown either. Their store opening is part of a flurry of new businesses injecting life into the city’s commercial district.

Your favorite salon may not be able to use your long-preferred products at your next appointment as the state law banning cosmetics containing a variety of prohibited chemicals goes into effect on Dec. 31. 

Want to make absolutely sure your holiday cards and gifts make it to loved ones by Dec. 25? You’ve got about two weeks to get them in the mail. 

As Small Business Saturday arrives on Nov. 29, Tri-City retailers are hoping residents will choose to shop close to home to keep jobs and tax dollars local and support locally-owned shops. Downtown Kennewick is offering incentives for shoppers, too.

Sales from licensed cannabis producers, processors and retailers have dropped every year since 2021, with those in industry saying a variety of pressures threaten the future of the industry.

A now-closed Richland floral shop that was a flashpoint in a discrimination lawsuit for a previous owner’s refusal to provide flowers to a gay couple recently declared bankruptcy and counts its former owner among its creditors.