Merchants Are Seeking Help to End Sales Slump

A solitary customer eyed neatly pressed skirts and slacks at the $6 and Up Capital Clothing store on Pacific Boulevard in Huntington Park. And from his elevated perch at the front of the store, manager David Rabi puzzled over how to boost sales.

Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, business has been “very, very, very slow,” said Rabi, who runs the store for his brother.

Rabi said he’s tried lowering prices. Knit skirts that were selling for $15.99 before the attacks are $9.99. But deep discounts have not worked.

Throughout the country, merchants are complaining that flagging consumer confidence, layoffs and, to some extent, fear are keeping customers out of stores and cash out of registers. And all the while, the crucial holiday shopping season inches closer.

Rabi and other anxious retailers would like some help from merchant groups, business associations, chambers of commerce and the like. But even those organizations are puzzled and say they’ll have to go beyond the strategies of the past.

“This is not the normal course of business. It’s not the normal course of life,” said Dante D’Eramo, executive manager for the Greater Huntington Park Area Chamber of Commerce.

“We as the chamber cannot tackle this alone. It’s going to take unity and involvement of all of the business agencies and city government. This is a major challenge.”

Pacific ranks as one of Los Angeles County’s key Latino shopping districts, with block after block of shoe stores, furniture marts and jewelers. Nearby, a 1960s-era sign boasts that the community has “more stores than a shopping center.”

Yet up and down the strip one recent afternoon, there were many goods but few buyers.

“Muerte,” said Saeed Dayani, owner of the LA Choice children’s clothing store on Pacific. “Look around you. It’s totally dead.”

Dayani’s eyes brightened as a couple, toting a toddler, eyed a pink two-piece outfit on the far wall. After negotiating briefly, the family left without buying.

“It cost $18,” Dayani said. “I told them $15. They don’t care. Cheap or high, the people don’t care. No money, they say.”

Many merchants along Pacific hoped that the recent three-day festival, Sabor de Mexico Lindo (Taste of Beautiful Mexico), would kick-start business.

D’Eramo said the event drew about 400,000 people and attracted radio and television coverage. But some merchants complained that even the festive atmosphere was not enough to prompt a significant boost in sales.

“It was up lots, about 30% above average,” said Chris Kim, owner of Niko 1 Hour Photo & Ice Cream on Pacific. “But I had expected more.”

D’Eramo said the chamber board will meet soon to better promote holiday shopping on Pacific. Other merchant groups also are looking at ways to help retailers.

With many consumers skittish about going too far from home, the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica will launch a “buy local” campaign, said Kathleen Rawson, executive director of Bayside District Corp., which manages and promotes the three-block shopping strip and the downtown area.

“The first thing we’re going to do is try to get the folks who live and work in Santa Monica to spend their money in Santa Monica,” Rawson said. She added that because of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the ensuing focus on unity, the campaign will involve the Promenade and adjacent Santa Monica Place mall as well as vendors along Montana Avenue and other shopping strips in the city.

“People want to stay close to home,” Rawson said. “They want community and family events, and we’re going to be doing a lot of that on the Promenade.”

Analysts said this mercantile malaise is born of a crisis of confidence, an absence of cash and a dash of fear.

Nationwide, businesses slashed payrolls in September by at least 100,000, and Mark Zandi, chief economist at Economy.com, predicts that over the next six months a net 500,000 more jobs are likely to be lost.

“People today are far more savings conscious than they’ve been in a decade,” said Kurt Barnard, publisher of New Jersey-based Barnard’s Retail Trend Report, which specializes in consumer spending patterns and retail trends.

“There’s been a frightening decline in job security, and that means you’re a lot more worried that you will lose your job. So people will spend less money and they won’t buy on a whim.”

Barnard could have been speaking about the Walnut Park household of Rene and Aily Rice, where impulse buying is a thing of the past.

With three children under 6 and a fourth on the way, Rene Rice said he already had cut back as the California power crunch escalated his energy bills and made his job at a steel manufacturer more dicey.

“We’ve cut back even more since the attack,” Rice added.

“If they didn’t have a two-for-one deal on shoes, we wouldn’t have gotten shoes for the kids today,” said Rice, toting boxes from a Payless ShoeSource store on Pacific. “We’re buying the necessities, but luxury items, “ he said, a shrug completing his thought.

Five-year-old Marina Rice winced as her dad described life since Sept. 11: No DVD rentals, no dinners out. Just the basics.

Matt Aziz’s Game Center, a store on Pacific that usually attracts children and teens eager for the latest PlayStation 2 title, is emptier these days.

“I have fewer customers,” Aziz said. “People don’t know what will happen next.”

So if you’re the marketing manager for the local merchants’ association and your mission is to attract customers, what do you do?

Many business promoters vowed to take a proactive stand but acknowledged that it will take a level of creativity not needed during headier times.

“We’re trying to create some new programs to increase activity,” said Todd Steadman, director of economic development and government affairs for the Beverly Hills Chamber of Commerce and Civic Assn. “I don’t think this is something any of us has experienced before.”

Beyond that, Barnard said, “You scratch your head and you cross your fingers. And hope that you can weather the storm.”