Putting the Cart Before the Store : Retailing: Those who do a good job running stands in shopping malls may get a chance to operate a full-scale shop there.

Diane Shelton spent hours at the cart she rented in the aisles of the Fox Hills Mall, selling jewelry, peering into the stores that surrounded her kiosk-on-wheels and learning the fine art of retail sales.

What she really wanted was her own full-scale shop in the mall; this summer, she got it.

After watching Shelton’s business savvy nurture a small opportunity into a budding business, the Culver City shopping center made her an offer.

Without the cart, which she operated for a year, it might never have happened. Shelton is one of four retailers who have made the jump from cart to storefront in the 18-month life of the Fox Hills program.

“The mall cart definitely was a plus in getting a spot in the mall, because it was my chance for someone to see my merchandising talents,” said Shelton, who now operates West Love Cultural Crafts with her sister, Debra Hubbard, and some help from her family. The store sells merchandise ranging from African artifacts to hand-painted batik print shirts.

In the past few years, hundreds of carts have sprung up at shopping centers from Seattle to San Diego, as West Coast malls follow an East Coast trend that began in the late 1970s.

The kiosks-on-wheels were originally meant to bring diversity to shopping centers and offer a means for fledgling retailers to test their skills. They have not always succeeded at nurturing shopkeepers because of limited mall space and the carts’ narrow focus.

Over the years, however, they have become valued for other uses: providing mall management with extra dollars from additional rents and allowing established retailers to merchandise specialty items such as cellular phones.

Spokeswoman Cathy Lickteig said Rouse Co. launched its cart program in 1976 at Boston’s Faneuil Hall Market Place in an effort to attract established retailers to the urban market. It now operates cart programs at 80% of its 79 malls across the country.

“We’ve had a generation of pushcart merchants who have essentially learned the business and done well and graduated from the cart to a larger space in the shopping centers,” Lickteig said.

But Bob Dobson, retail licensing director of Hahn Co., said the graduation rate for cart owners is relatively low.

“With carts, we have been able to offer a chance to hundreds of people who might not otherwise have had an opportunity to come into a shopping center,” Dobson said. But “the odds are one in 100 to start on a cart and finish in an in-line (store) space.”

Dobson said the cart programs his company began in 1987 at San Diego’s Horton Plaza and University Towne Centre led the way for the 22 programs Hahn Co. now manages at its 54 shopping malls.

The carts’ success and the availability of mall space dictate who will be offered one of the limited store openings, he said.

In addition to giving a few retailers the chance to become regular tenants, each cart brings in $10,000 to $15,000 a year in rents or 15% of the retailer’s profit, whichever is higher, Dobson said. For some carts, profit easily tops rents.

In Oregon, the Portland Trail Blazers cart at Clackamas Town Center beat out full-scale retailers when its sales topped $25,000 in the week before last Christmas, said J. Isaac, director of business development for the basketball team.

The cart, one of three operated by the Blazers, offers items ranging from underwear to earrings without locking the team into a long-term lease. It also provides extra revenue to help meet rising player salaries, Isaac said.

Cart programs bring a better selection of merchandise to a mall. At Santa Monica Place, shoppers can browse through carts that offer everything from funky latex ties to semiprecious bead jewelry.

Cart retailing may also start a new trend in the way that developers fashion shopping centers. Westlake Center, in the heart of downtown Seattle, was designed three years ago with carts in mind, said Carol Diedtrich, leasing manager of Westlake Center.

“We’ve had a successful history with the carts so that the new (shopping) centers we’ve developed have included a pushcart area,” Diedtrich said. “Even a handful include small shops that would be ideal for a pushcart merchant to move into.”