Retail Forecast: Stores Struggle For Sales Survival | Local businesses find hope despite turbulent times and a tough economy
Photo/Eileen KEnnedy
Cindy Rowe Pelletier, owner of Nashoba Valley Winery in Bolton, says her customers can't do without wine.
Almost six weeks before Christmas, the showroom at Neal Rosenblum Goldsmiths on Park Avenue in Worcester is empty.
Classical music plays from concealed speakers around the shop as the store’s 57-year-old founder highlights the most popular pieces of his current inventory: wedding bands fashioned in a Japanese style known as mokume gane.
Still, on a Friday afternoon, with the looming presence of holiday shopping just around the corner, his shop is without a single customer.
“In a lot of ways, we don’t operate our business strictly by numbers,” said Rosenblum, explaining that there is no discernable, day-to-day pattern for sales. “It’s a very unpredictable thing. You can’t really plan for anything.”
Of course, given the current economic situation for Massachusetts and the nation as a whole, Rosenblum understands the uncertainty. “I listen to the news all the time,” he said, “and it scares the hell out of me because everything, it seems, is in a negative direction. I don’t know what kind of control I can have in my business to change it in any way.”
Luckily, for the self-taught jeweler who began working out of a closet in the early 70s but now shares a 2,000-square-foot workspace with his brother and business partner, his business has remained steady, even through these turbulent times.
“People find us if they have an interest in it,” he said. “It really is a word-of-mouth business more than anything.”
Money To (Not) Spend
Rosenblum still worries about the uncertainty ahead, as does any business owner these days, but he’s content to move forward without reinventing the way he operates.
“We’re so small; it’s hard to make a decision to change anything at this point,” he said. “But at the same time, we’re just not doing anything differently than the last several years. So long as I can pay my bills and feed my family and keep the business going, I think I’ll be able to ride it out.”
Clients of KeyPoint Partners have looked to Robert Sheehan for retail and market analysis for more than 25 years. The vice president of research at the Burlington-based firm began analyzing retail markets during the early 1970s and said he has not seen a recession this severe since 1973.
All is not dire, however, as Sheehan said he believes that consumers have money to spend but are simply reluctant to spend it.
Sadly, the good news stops there.
As for when we can expect to see a resurging economy, Sheehan suggested it could be a ways off.
“Economists’ predictions are all over the place right now,” he said. “You need to see some stabilization in home prices. Most people are looking forward to 2010 as kind of a rebounding year. I think we may see it [in Massachusetts] as early as the back half of 2009. I wish I could paint a rosier picture, but it’s been a tough year and 2009 will be a tough year, too.”
Looking out over Nashoba Valley Winery’s 55-acre orchard in Bolton, one could presume it was a tough year. Rain-soaked yellow and copper leaves cling to the barren fruit trees while plump beads of water coat the scraggily stocks of grape vines snaking upward over the hillside. With a light mist falling from overcast skies, the landscape may look bleak, but inside business is booming.
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“We’re above last year,” says Cindy Rowe Pelletier, the winery’s vice president. “People like their wines,” she added with a coy smile. “We have those loyal customers who say, ‘It’s Thanksgiving time, I need my bottle of cranberry-apple wine to go with my dinner. That’s tradition.’ Some of those traditional things help us through.”
But make no mistake about it, Cindy and husband Richard—the general manager and president—who purchased the property in 1995, are always working.
The winery produces 31 varieties of wine from blueberry merlots to standard chardonnays; a broad array of distillates ranging from home-made cognac and brandies to a whiskey set for a 2009 release and a handful of beers.
That multifaceted product line helped salvage a poor apple-picking return this season due to an August hailstorm that destroyed 80 percent of their crop.
“We’re always making wine. We’re always making beer. We’re always making distillates,” said Rowe Pelletier. “We conduct tours every weekend and wine tastings seven days a week. We’re not recession proof…nobody is. But right now, we’re weathering the storm. You have to spend money to make money.”
Ernest Quintiliani, store manager of Watch City Cigar Co. in Framingham, argued that the times call for just the opposite approach. “Hold on, scale back, and cut down on spending,” he would tell other businesses. “There’s not much more that a business owner can do. If the money’s not coming in, you can’t be buying product left and right. It helps to be a little conservative right now, but you can’t panic and jump ship.”
The ‘Oh Jesus’ Handles
The 39-year-old has managed the cigar staple on Route 9 for the past eight years but acknowledges that current times are the toughest he’s ever had to face. Only a few years ago, Quintiliani could easily sell $4,000 humidors and $1,000 pipes, but now customers are spending no more than $150.
While it’s a drastic change of pace, he does not fear the worst. “It’s just a matter of holding onto the ‘Oh Jesus’ handles for a few months,” he said. “If you’re a well established store, you can weather out these storms.”
When the plan was hatched in 2002 to restore Worcester’s Hanover Theatre to its original glory as a live venue for stage shows and concerts, no one involved could have imagined that just months after its grand opening six years later, the country would fall into one of the worst economic declines in decades.
Yet, despite the downtrodden times, ticket sales at the Southbridge Street theatre are up and its future seems bright.
“As soon as the stock market took a dive, the phone stopped ringing,” said Troy Siebels, the theatre’s executive director. “However, it [ticket sales] has gone back up more than it went down. People are realizing that, yeah, the economy is in a big slump, but we’re not in the Great Depression.”
After a $31.5 million restoration and with a $4 million debt to still repay, you can bet the theatre will be cautious moving forward.
“We won’t take big risks next year,” said Siebels, who plans to target audiences living east of Worcester but west of Boston. “When you open the Boston Globe Fall Arts section, you see the Wang Center and the Boston Opera House and the Hanover Theatre all on the same page,” he said. “It makes people realize that we’re a venue like we are. We just have to commit the resources to advertising in the right way.”
As for the current state of affairs, Siebels is both practical and optimistic. “I’m sure there are people who are not buying tickets that would if the economy were different,” he said, “but I think you need a release from the daily grind. We’re trying to make the case that one way to deal with the new economy is to come here.”
Shaun Tolson is a freelance writer based in Ashburnham.
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