How to Find European Items Closer to Home
Q. I own a women’s clothing store that carries mostly Italian and French imported items. The business is doing extremely well, but lately I’ve run into problems finding sources for low-priced, unique merchandise in Southern California. I heard that many European clothing and accessories wholesalers are in New York City. Do you have any information on such wholesalers?
--Jimmy Yong, Rowland Heights
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A. The way most stores stock their merchandise is by attending “market weeks” at the apparel marts in major fashion centers around the country. The California Mart sponsors them here in Los Angeles. If you are taking good advantage of that and still are not finding enough merchandise, you should call the other major marts in Dallas, Chicago, San Francisco, Atlanta and New York and find out when they are holding market weeks and what kinds of apparel they will be featuring.
Wholesalers strategically decide what mart locations will attract the clientele that they can sell to, and then they lease space to show off their merchandise during those market weeks. Do some telephone work first and talk to mart offices about what kinds of wholesalers they expect during particular market weeks before you fly off to New York and find you could have located all the merchandise you needed closer to home.
Most of the marts publish market week schedules and calendars that show what kind of merchandise they will be selling and when. During market weeks, many marts schedule peripheral activities, such as extra fashion shows, that you might want to take advantage of. Women’s Wear Daily regularly runs announcements of upcoming market weeks around the country.
We are now at work on an online sourcing database for all segments of the apparel pipeline--retailers, suppliers, trade associations, bankers and manufacturers--that should be extremely useful to the Southern California apparel industry once it becomes functional sometime next year.
--Jean Gipe, director,
Apparel Technology and Research
Center, Cal Poly Pomona
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Q. I am interested in operating a foreign currency exchange booth at a hotel. I am not familiar with what kind of license I would need to open such a business. I talked to my bank manager, but she couldn’t help me. Please let me have your assistance.
--Don Perera, Torrance
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A. Licensing for such a business is done at the state level. If you want to do straight cash-for-cash exchanges, such as exchanging dollars for pesos, there are no state regulations that govern your business. You would need to get the same local business license that every other business in your area needs.
However, if you want to be able to send money overseas, such as wiring pesos to Mexico, you need a “transmitter of money abroad” license. Currently, there are 30 licensees in the state with thousands of independent agents working for them. You can find a listing of all the licensees on our Web site at https://www.dfi.ca.gov. For information on the licensing procedure, contact my office at 111 Pine St., Suite 1100, San Francisco, CA 94111-5613 or call (415) 263-8540.
--Arlene Rutherford,
assistant deputy commissioner,
California Department of Financial
Institutions, San Francisco
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A. We operate retail foreign currency exchange locations in airports and have a virtual franchise program available to disadvantaged, minority and women-owned businesses.
Under Federal Aviation Administration rules, 15% of airport concessionaires must be disadvantaged or minorities. So we contract with minority or disadvantaged business enterprises to run our retail exchange locations at several airports around the United States.
If you fit into one of those categories and would like to get information about our program, contact Fran Taurasi on our staff at (800) 362-8641.
--Brian Snelling, vice president
of marketing, Thomas Cook
Financial Services
of North America,
Toronto
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A. Most hotels that offer currency exchange operate it as an ancillary part of their core business or rent space in their lobbies to established foreign currency exchange companies.
We are just rolling out a significant test of a franchise-like exchange business that will operate in the travel agency industry. Under our new program, existing travel agencies will be able to access our daily foreign exchange rates through their computer systems. Then, if their customers would like to purchase international currency along with their tickets, they can place orders online to our fulfillment center in Salt Lake City, and their currency will be overnighted either to the agency or directly to the traveler.
--Roy Hibberd, vice president
for the Americas, American Express
Global Foreign Exchange, New York
If you have a question about how to start or operate a small business, please mail it to Karen E. Klein in care of the Los Angeles Times, 1333 S. Mayflower Ave., Suite 100, Monrovia, CA 91016, or e-mail it to Kklein6349
@aol.com. Include your name, address and telephone number. The column is designed to answer questions of general interest. It should not be construed as legal advice.
