January 5, 2006

By Diane Chiddister

The 2005 holiday season proved not great, but pretty good for most downtown businesses, shop owners reported in interviews last week and this week.

In a survey of 14 downtown shops, almost all business owners or managers said that holiday sales in 2005 showed a marked improvement over the 2004 season, which was universally regarded as dismal. Several business people also said they noticed, and appreciated, more shoppers from Yellow Springs in their stores.

“I was pleased,” said Josie Inslee, the manager of Pangaea. “We had much better sales than last year.”

Inslee credited good weather with bringing more shoppers to town in 2005, compared to the 2004 holiday season, when a blizzard struck the Miami Valley during the week of Christmas. She said she had been concerned when sales fell off during the fall of 2005, but December brought Christmas shoppers ready to spend.

But most didn’t spend cash, Inslee said, and credit card business ruled the day. To Priscilla Moore, owner of Mr. Fub’s Party, the prevalence of credit cards meant people don’t feel confident about the economy.

“When you see people using credit cards, it means the economy isn’t as good as when they’re pulling out cash,” she said.

The sales at Mr. Fub’s were excellent this year, Moore said, the best since the economy took a dive after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. But her success didn’t come without effort, Moore said, explaining that she put increased time this year into stocking her shelves with the latest toy offerings, publicizing her store’s 25th birthday and advertising in a variety of venues.

“I worked hard to get there,” Moore said. “You can’t just sit and wait anymore. There’s way too much competition. You have to be proactive and give customers what they want.”

Moore said she is especially concerned about the summer 2006 opening of a new mall in Beavercreek, which has been marketed as having a village-like atmosphere. People always flock to new malls, Moore believes, and this one seems aimed to compete for people who like small-town shopping. The new competition means she will work harder yet, she said.

“You have to let them know why you’re special, and then stay special,” Moore said.

At Ohio Silver this year, extra effort also paid off, said owner Marcia Wallgren, and the store, which began 35 years ago, had its best year yet. This year’s holiday sales were more than 20 percent higher than the previous year’s, she said.

Wallgren credited the increase to new merchandise, which, she said, she purchases at trade shows in Denver once or twice a year. Customers especially like items made of fossils and meteorites, which the store now carries, she said. While her customer base used to be about 30 percent local and 70 percent out-of-towners, in the last decade it has tended to be about 50 percent Yellow Springers, and that trend held this year, she said.

Members of Village Artisans Cooperative noticed more local shoppers this year, Nancy Mellon said.

“More people seem to be making the effort to stay in town,” she said.

Mellon said she worried at the beginning of the holiday season because shoppers seemed scarce. But they finally showed up the week before Christmas, and the co-op did much better this year than last, she said.

Mellon links the store’s increased business with its new location, in the Shops at 100 Corry Street, which sees more foot traffic than its former location behind Ye Olde Trail Tavern and Sam & Eddie’s Open Books in Kings Yard. But Corry and Dayton Street stores still lag behind Xenia Avenue stores, according to Mellon, who said it would help those businesses if the Village strung Christmas lights on those streets as well as on Xenia Avenue, because lights draw shoppers.

Also at 100 Corry Street, Julia Etta’s Trunk owner Julane Chaney said that her business did much better than in 2004, a holiday season that was so bad that she considered closing her store last January. But Chaney said she had a strong spring and summer season in 2005 and “decent” holiday sales. While Julia Etta’s has not quite bounced back to the level of her strongest year, in 2003, it is heading in the right direction, Chaney said.

Chaney said she did not notice more shoppers from Yellow Springs this year. Although she has “consistent people in town” who frequent her shop, most of her business comes from Columbus, Dayton or Centerville residents who come to Yellow Springs specifically to shop at Julia Etta’s, she said.

Sherryl Kostic, the owner of “would you, could you” In A Frame, had her first Christmas season in a new location, after moving last summer from 100 Corry Street to the corner of Xenia Avenue and Corry, the former Joe Holly’s Cleaners site. Kostic said while her holiday sales were pretty good, they weren’t as good as she had hoped.

“We need a little more push” to draw shoppers on Xenia Avenue to Corry and Dayton Street stores, she said.

Sales were slow this holiday season at the Dayton Street location of the Epic Book Shop, owner Gail Lichtenfels said. However, Lichtenfels said she wasn’t surprised because the store is undergoing renovations and was often in disarray. She said she is concentrating on preparing to open the Mermaid Cafe, a coffee and juice bar, in the store.

The owners of two longtime downtown businesses, Earth Rose and Bonadies Glasstudio, both said the holiday season was disappointing.

“It was slower than I thought it should be,” said Ed Oxley, who said that at 36 his business, Earth Rose, is the oldest downtown retail store.

Oxley linked the lack of foot traffic in Earth Rose to a shaky economy. People who purchased items tended to buy practical things, such as jackets and scarves, which indicated that they were pinching their pennies, he said.

Across Xenia Avenue at Bonadies, which turns 30 this year, owner Valerie Spinning said that custom-designed stained glass orders were down this holiday season, which she linked to the increased availability of imported, less-expensive stained glass. Spinning said she plans to stock her store with the less-expensive items that customers seem to want.

Two business owners in Kings Yard said they had exceptionally good years.

Patty Purdin said her shop, No Common Scents, had a “bang-up season,” and this year’s sales far exceeded those of 2004.

The shopping season started slowly, Purdin said, and even the Holiday in the Village weekends didn’t seem to draw foot traffic. But customers flooded in at the last minute to buy spices, handmade incense and gift items, and they kept coming even after Christmas, she said.

Rita Caz Jewelry Studio also did very well, said owner Mark Crockett, who said the bulk of the store’s business is custom-designed or repaired jewelry items. Crockett said his customer base is a “good mix” of local residents and people from out of town, and that mix held constant this year.

The holiday season was a test for Global Gallery, which opened in August in Kings Yard in the former location of Village Artisans. Terre Pope, the store’s manager, said the owner of Global Gallery, who is in Columbus, had decided that the Yellow Springs store needed to do a certain amount of business over the holidays to remain downtown.

Yellow Springs passed the test, Pope said.

“We did what we hoped for,” he said, adding that the store just signed a one-year lease in a new location, on Xenia Avenue, the site of the former Village Gallery and Guitar, next to Dunphy’s Real Estate.

Most of Global Gallery’s customers have come from out of town, Pope said, and he hopes to draw more local customers to the store, which features items made in developing countries by craftspeople who are paid a fair wage.

The new location will significantly increase the store’s visibility, Pope said. He said he also hopes to encourage other downtown businesses to offer evening shopping hours. Lots of people come to Yellow Springs at night to eat out or go to the Little Art Theatre, he said, and they would probably shop too if stores were open, especially on weekends.

Contact: dchiddister@ysnews.com