Snaring Shoppers : Owners of Small Retail Stores Cultivate a Clientele All Their Own Using Personalized Service and a Smile

In the midst of holiday shopping, a curly-haired woman in a peach tennis outfit held a blouse at arm’s length and eyed it tentatively.

Finally, she asked the saleswoman at Champagne how it would go with items she had purchased earlier at the elegant Redondo Beach boutique.

“No, that wouldn’t be good,” the clerk replied, banking on the principle that honesty is the best policy to keep customers coming back.

It’s that kind of service that many independent retailers rely on to compete with the South Bay’s eight major malls, merchants and shoppers said in a survey of more than 30 small retail stores from San Pedro to Manhattan Beach.

Because store owners as a rule are closed-mouthed about sales figures, it is impossible to know for sure how the South Bay’s independent retailers are doing this season. Merchants are notorious for grousing about business, saying that sales are not as good as they had hoped, observed Bill Fowler of the Hermosa Beach Chamber of Commerce.

Indeed, in interviews last week throughout the South Bay, some merchants said sales have been lackluster this season. Others, however, raved about a holiday boom. One store owner said he is going out of business because of dwindling sales, while Champagne’s buyer-manager, Mary Boswell, said this season’s sales figures are at least 25% higher than last season’s.

The stores that thrive outside the mall owe their success, at least in part, to better service, attractive prices, a unique selection of merchandise, or a combination of the three.

During her visit to Champagne last week, Cindy Dunbar of Palos Verdes Estates said she gravitates to small stores because they offer attentive service and a selection of fine merchandise. Instead of running all over a mall, she said, she can find what she wants in one small shop.

“Time is at a premium,” said Dunbar, a mother of two, as she gathered up $387 in purchases, including a party outfit and a belt the saleswoman suggested would go with it.

Dunbar said she did most of her holiday shopping this year in Riviera Village, a cluster of shops on Catalina Avenue in southern Redondo Beach that cater to affluent residents of Palos Verdes Peninsula and the beach cities. While some mall lots were jammed with cars, Dunbar was able to find a parking spot on the street nearby. At the other end of the glamour spectrum are modest stores in the downtown districts of San Pedro, Torrance, Gardena and Inglewood.

Some downtown stores have been in business for decades, catering to hometown customers who appreciate nearby locations, moderate prices and the friendliness of salespeople who know them by name.

Jane Friedman, for example, did some shopping in downtown Gardena last week because the stores and service shops are near her office. “The biggest advantage of shopping here is that you can get in and out quickly on your lunch hour,” she said. “They care about their patrons and call when an order is ready.”

Many of the plain-wrap downtown stores look as though they belong in a small Midwestern town in the 1950s. But many shoppers are not looking for high-tech decor and trendy boutique merchandise, downtown merchants said.

With nary a neon sign or pastel paint job, for example, Yale Waterman Men’s Shop has been a fixture in downtown San Pedro since 1947, said owner Rosario Scognamillo. The store has prospered because it offers a good selection of merchandise, he said, and “service, service, service.”

For example, Scognamillo took a customer’s call, patiently answered questions, personally checked the sizes and colors of merchandise available, and then had the desired item wrapped for pickup later that day.

Eschewing yuppie-era niceties such as new-age music, Yale Waterman’s is a traditional small-town men’s store, complete with wood paneling and a ladder that slides along the wall to give clerks access to high shelves, where pants and shirts are stacked by size. “This is an old-fashioned store, back to basics,” Scognamillo said firmly.

In downtown Gardena, Carl’s Pocket Book Exchange is short on amenities and depends on discount prices to attract customers.

Manager Mike Rhoden said his parents’ store has stayed in business 18 years, with virtually no advertising, because there is a steady demand for bargain books. Some paperbacks are as little as 30 cents.

Mall Rents Prohibitive

Rhoden said that at those prices, stores like Carl’s cannot afford the rent in a mall. Rents in major malls average $3 to $4 a square foot, according to real estate sources, compared to as little as $1.20 a square foot in modest neighborhoods.

Whether lavish or plain, retail stores have to clearly identify their niche in the market. Retailers must know exactly what kind of customer they are trying to attract, said Prof. Bernard Codner, director of the Institute of Retail Management at Cal State Los Angeles. A store that caters to “price-sensitive” shoppers need not worry much about aesthetics, he said, while a fashion store that is selling elegance and style has to provide a setting that reflects those qualities.

The retail field is at best risky, with many new stores failing because owners do not start with enough capital or experience. According to John Tumpak of the Small Business Administration, half of all new businesses fail in the first two or three years, and 90% fail within five years. That dismal record is due principally to inexperienced or ineffective business management, Tumpak said.

“In retailing,” said Steve Soboroff, a Santa Monica developer and consultant, “you’ve got to understand advertising, promotion, labor relations, real estate, merchandising and accounting.” Soboroff, whose UCLA Extension retailing seminar attracted 2,000 store owners and managers earlier this month, said retailing is so demanding that “it’s a heck of a lot easier to make money investing in real estate.”

Unique Items Important

To survive and prosper, an independent store has to offer something special that a shopper would not find in a chain or department store, said Robert Marsh, the manager of Jonathan, a men’s and women’s fashion store in Riviera Village that has been in business 16 years. Along with an array of executive clothing and evening gowns, Jonathan offers a strapless leopard-print leather dress for $1,590 and a matching $2,650 jacket. You won’t see that outfit at most department stores, he said.

“In the malls, it looks like all the stores have the same buyer,” said Marsh. The last thing that a Jonathan customer wants is to run into a friend wearing the same outfit, he said.

Aside from distinctive merchandise, a crucial requirement for success in retail business is an accessible, visible location, real estate and marketing consultants agree.

“In retail, street traffic creates value,” said Steve Deming of Coldwell Banker Commercial Real Estate Services in Torrance. Hawthorne Boulevard is the South Bay’s main street of retail because it carries an estimated 45,000 cars a day with many potential shoppers, Deming said.

Don Wolf, a retail specialist for Grubb & Ellis Commercial Brokerage Services, said Hawthorne Boulevard commands higher rents--$2 to $2.25 a square foot-- “because every major (store) wants to be there, and every minor one, too, if it can afford it.”

Stores can also prosper at secondary locations. Torrance Bakery owner Kirk Rossberg said that the low rent he obtained when he took over the business four years ago in the city’s old downtown redevelopment area helped him survive the crucial first year. His business nearly went under when he had to replace the bakery’s 50-year-old oven after only a few months, he said.

But buoyed by a burgeoning lunchtime sandwich business as the word spread among local office workers, the bakery has grown from 7 to 35 employees and has nearly doubled its space, according to the 31-year-old Rossberg. Business is up 55% this holiday season over last, he reported with a grin.

Successful Clothier

Another retail success story with a location that would defy the experts is Armando Clothing Collections, a European menswear boutique on a lightly traveled side street in Inglewood. The store, on East Queen Street a block from the city’s main business district, is the creation of 28-year-old Juan Armando Minniefield.

Imitating the best retail traditions of Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, he sees customers by appointment only in a studio decorated with art posters, classical sculpture and African carvings.

Minniefield pointed to a rack of suits priced from $350 to $750 that he purchased on his twice-a-year buying trips to Paris.

With boundless enthusiasm and unabashed self-promotion, he rattled off the names of celebrity customers and local notables--including Inglewood’s dapper police chief, Ray Johnson--who shop at Armando.

“I’m a single guy and I do like to dress nicely,” Johnson said in an interview. On his first visit to Armando, he recalled, he merely intended to introduce himself as the police chief. But by the time Minniefield had shown him around the salon, Johnson said, he had bought five suits.

Johnson said that although the costliest designer wear may be beyond his price range, he enjoys the style and customer service at Armando. Minniefield has a good eye for fashion and provides the kind of service that “makes you want to spend your money,” Johnson said with a chuckle.

Comfortable Environs

Formerly a top-selling salesman for a menswear chain, Minniefield decided to open his own business in Inglewood three years ago. “What I have created here is very comfortable, very quiet,” he said, serving cold fruit juice in a fluted glass at a small bar he stocks with peach champagne for customers.

Business is good, he said, showing off the blueprints for a branch store he plans to open soon in the new Baldwin Hills mall. His ultimate goal, he said, is to own a shop in the ritzy Trump Tower in New York. “Because of my patience, I’ve had success,” he said. “I’ve been blessed. But the key is staying power. You have to stick with it. IBM and Hilton weren’t built overnight.”

Minniefield acknowledged that because he is a one-man business in a lower-rent location, he had fewer start-up expenses. But the key to his success is an eye for fashion and style, he said.

In their competition with mall shops, some independent stores excel at offering handmade, one-of-a-kind merchandise that does not lend itself to mass marketing:

At Avanti Jewelers in Hermosa Beach, owner Kevin Murphy makes rings and pendants of his own design, some using antique Chinese mother-of-pearl gambling chips; The Glad Hand in Redondo Beach sells handsomely crafted glassware and jewelry by local artists; Once Upon a Quilt in Manhattan Beach has antique and modern hand-quilted items, and the Sharron Polkinghorne shop nearby offers fancy stationery and offbeat handmade gifts; the newly opened Real Gems in Hermosa has an array of hand-carved marble items and one-of-a-kind semi-precious geodes mined in South America.

Creating a Showcase

Many such items are made by a particular craftsman and could not be mass-produced for a chain or department store. An independent merchant can create a showcase for the artist and guarantee buyers they will not see the same item at another store. Other stores have prospered by specializing and stocking almost everything within that specialty.

Despite the diversity of the South Bay’s retail businesses, consultants said that one of the most universal keys to success is good service.

“Take an interest in your customers,” advised Robert Kahn, a San Francisco-based management consultant who publishes a newsletter called Retailing Today. “The cheapest way to improve your sales is to smile when people come into your store.”