Can’t win them all, or at least two national contests in a row.

USA Today announced last week its 10Best winners for “Best Small Town for Shopping” and Sequim came in third behind top vote-getter Berlin, Md., and runner-up Lewes, Del.

Orcas Island, Sequim’s closest competitor by proximity came, in eighth.

Last year, Sequim won “Best Northwestern Small Town” over cities from six states in the newspaper’s online contest.

Viewers were encouraged to vote daily for one of 20 cities across the nation with 25,000 people or less selected by a panel of travel writers, editors and bloggers. The city with the most votes, or clicks, wins.

Voting ended the morning of May 14.

Port Townsend also was nominated for the newspaper’s “Best Coastal Small Town” contest and prior to rankings being finalized, the city was in 11th place.

Barbara Hanna, the City of Sequim’s communications and marketing director, said coming in third in a national competition is a big deal for Sequim.

“It’s a nod to our local merchants,” she said.

After Sequim won the “Best Northwestern Small Town” contest, Hanna said she was able to use it in marketing with success.

Hanna, who manages the City of Sequim’s social media accounts, promoted the contest online, in newsletters and by word-of-mouth with community members, business owners, and business champions like the Sequim-Dungeness Valley Chamber of Commerce.

The contest’s web page, describes Sequim as “an old mill town on the Olympic Peninsula (that) enjoys a walkable downtown filled with gift shops and cafes, and punctuated by a historic grain elevator. This unusually sunny small town (at least by Washington standards) is famous for succulent Dungeness crab, as well as the fields of fragrant lavender at its outskirts.”

Other finalists included, Highlands, N.C. in fourth; Woodstock, Vt., fifth; Fairhope, Ala., sixth; Fredericksburg, Texas, seventh; Allen, Mich., ninth; and Taos, N.M., tenth.

According to US Census Bureau data, both Berlin and Lewes are smaller than Sequim.

At one point, Sequim was leading the contest and dropped to third.

To read more about this and other contests from USA Today, visit www.10best.com/awards/travel/best-small-town-for-shopping/.