Business & Tech

So Far, a Tough 2011 for Slope Businesses

In the first month of the year, many businesses along Fifth and Seventh Avenues closed up shop.

Trolling the blocks of Fifth or Seventh avenues, passersby might notice Park Slope’s commercial strips have seen quite a few closings since Christmas.

First, Little Buddy Biscuit Company after only a year and half, leaving South Slope wanting for those fluffy, buttery biscuits.

Shortly thereafter Fifth Avenue gift shop Extraordinary closed its store, as did  Buttercup's Paw-tisserie, Hog Mountain, Under the Pig, Gemini Treasury, , , and Fashion East.

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The list, it seems, goes on and on. So far it’s been a tough 2011.

“I think the economy is just like a tumbleweed, the problem is getting bigger, it’s not really going away yet,” said Irene LoRe, Executive Director of the Fifth Avenue Business Improvement District and owner of Aunt Suzie’s. “It’s the accumulation of struggle, struggle, struggle.”

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LoRe explained that years of low sales, compounded with rough winter weather has been the fatal kiss of death for many Park Slope business. The snowy week between Christmas and New Year’s — usually a great week for retail and restaurants — may have made the struggle particularly tough.

“It’s very difficult for people to buy local when they’re not doing well themselves,” LoRe added. “It’s not necessarily cheaper on the dollar to buy local. And when people are suffering, they’re not caring that there are so many cute shops on Fifth Avenue.”

J.R. Sanders closed down Extraordinary, his Fifth Avenue and Berkeley Place gift shop, after eight years in business, though he still owns an outpost of the shop on the Upper East Side.

“In the past four years, the sales have been just dropping and dropping each year,” said Sanders, who said his holiday sales were particularly disappointing. In order to keep his inventory stocked, he said he even began resorting to taking merchandise in on consignment.

“During the weekdays it was getting pretty bad. Some days you would be lucky to make $100.”

As LoRe pointed out, local businesses are also finding it tough to compete with the Internet and chain stores, where the same goods can sometimes be found for a fraction of the price.

“Times are tough. Even though people love my store, if they can get something cheaper somewhere else, they’ll get it,” said Jess Draper, who owned the recently shuttered men’s clothing store Hog Mountain.

“I have to charge a certain amount for the items in the store to pay my rent and employees and myself. The price that I have to charge is much higher than you can come by online. I thought I could overcome the problem of the net with volume and the service, but I can’t.”

Troy Files decided to shutter Under the Pig this month partially because of a move to New Jersey, but said the economy was definitely a factor.

“It has certainly been a slow, slow last year,” he said. “I’ve certainly noticed one store after the other going out of business. I think we all realize that boy, January and February can be dismal and slow. And of course the blizzard wiped out a whole week in sales.”

Some stores have resorted to more creative tactics to weather the tough times: this week Seventh Avenue home furnishings store Artesana closed shop, but moved some of its inventory up the avenue its sister store El Milagro, which primarily sells jewelry.

When Little Buddy Biscuit Company announced its closure in December, owner Pete Solomita told us he’d like to embark on a similar venture, opening up a storefront with a few other business owners.

The Fifth Avnue BID has tried to use creativity to draw out winter-weary shoppers, too, hosting a raffle featuring a grand prize of a $1000 Spending Spree on Fifth Avenue (shoppers can still enter until Feb. 14).

Either way, it is clear that at least for Park Slope businesses, the tough times are not entirely in the past.

“These are the worst months,” said LoRe. “The only light at the end of the tunnel is Valentines Day, but a few weeks can be an eternity when you have to pay the bills.”

 


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