CHICKASAW COUNTY – The holiday shopping season officially kicked off last weekend and several retail stores are reporting good results and a potentially successful season.

Delois McShan, manager of Factory Connection in Houston, was very pleased with the results of “Black Friday.”

“We made the goals we set,” McShan said. “We did excellent.”

McShan said that specials and early bird sale items brought people into the store, but once there, they were ready to shop.

“We got a little bit from the sales, but we did really well with the higher ticket items, not just the door busters,” McShan said.

Karen Maxey manages the Dollar General Store in Okolona and has seen an upward overall trend this year in purchasing.

“I’ve been here since May and it has been a steady increase each month,” Maxey said. “This last month, our sales have really been going back up.”

Maxey said that the sale of Christmas items and gifts began to increase during the past week.

In tough economic times, retailers are going to different lengths to accommodate and interest customers and Wal-Mart 411 in Houston made a change in their shopping hours this year.

The store opened at noon on Thursday and remained open until 9 p.m. Friday for continuous shopping.

“Thirty-three straight hours of shopping,” laughed store manager Ken Turner. “Friday was a good day. We were very buy and everything went off well.”

The local merchants did not report any of the hostility or problems some of the larger retailers in the area had.

“Everything went really smooth,” Turner said. “We really appreciate our community shopping in their local stores. And I don’t mean just Wal-Mart, but shopping with all of our local merchants.”

With Christmas only 23 days away, more shoppers are expected to hit the stores before the big day.