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Going Once, Going Twice - Count On Retail Stores To Be Surprising

Tuesday January 29, 2008

By Ed Barna

   Old dogs may or may not be able to learn new tricks. Veteran retailers know that to stay in business, it’s important to offer new products and services.

   In a country where economists say 70 percent of the economic activity depends on consumers, the ability of store owners to surprise their customers is not just vital for their own survival. When shoppers abandon Main Street, Wall Street plunges.

   A check with some of Middlebury’s leading retailers found they had their worries, but that hadn’t kept them from moving ahead. Just because you’ve been to a store in past years, don’t assume you’ve been there and done that.

   For instance, at 36-year-old Wild Mountain Thyme, owner Paula Israel said “We always have new, cutting edge clothing.” But they have something you won’t necessarily find coming down the fashion center catwalks: good taste.

   “I just went to New York on a buying trip,” she said. “I saw so much ugly stuff it was incredible.”

   The moral of the story: “You don’t have to go to a city to do your buying.” And in the shop at 48 Main Street, that’s especially true for bags.

   Hand bags, traveling bags, purses, bags to carry to and from work, bags to carry laptop computers around—“we have a really wide selection,” Israel said of this new and improved part of their inventory. “Honestly I think we have the best bag selection for a small store that you’ve ever seen.”

   At Green Mountain Shoe & Apparel, owner Angie Wade said their new stock is on the apparel side. In a word, Carhartt has come to 20 Main Street.

   “Hard at work since 1889,” as a company slogan puts it, Carhartt started when Hamilton Carhartt found an unmet need for railroad work clothes. The line of products has expanded greatly since then, but Wade said she was convinced to carry their clothing because it is so durable and, for the value, affordable.

   Green Mountain has men’s Carhartt now, and will be adding women’s versions in the spring and summer, she said.

   At the Urban Exchange, Karen Curavoo said that in addition to her bargain fashion wear, she has begun selling the kind of products that for lack of a better word she calls “spiritual.” Those who remember the Spiral will have an idea of what she means, since it was that store’s closing which led to her adding things like Tarot cards, ghost books, “fairy dust,” angel items, and more.

   Nearby at 63 Main Street, Ben Franklin owner Larry Duffany had been pulling everything together after the Christmas season—and some of the hot items from that time gave insights into the latest trends. Just to show there is life in old concepts, “a couple of (board) games were really strong,” he said.

   One that every Addison County resident should know is supposedly “the game invented on the seat of a tractor.” Called “The Farming Game,” it will “place the back 40 on your kitchen table” and let you “see if you’ve got what it takes to be a farmer,” Duffany said, reading from the box.

   You start with 20 acres of land and a line of credit at the bank. You raise crops, buy commodities, and just as in Monopoly, not everything happens as hoped.

   “Apples to Apples” was popular, too, Duffany said, though it isn’t about running an orchard. And Legos, whose manufacturer keeps devising new kits that can be assembled as is or dismantled for their parts, were very popular, he said (maybe the Chamber of Commerce “Brick Blast” last summer had an effect?).

   If you want to go through mud season in style, you might want to stop by the Rainbow Room, where proprietor Abby DeGraw now has a line of fashion rainboots. “Nomad” rainboots, she said, which can also handle rain when it’s mixed with a little clay, are just one of her attempts to fill local needs.

   For the ultimate in new merchandise, you’ll have to wait until March, the time that Dick Phillips expects Vermont Field Sports to reopen in the Wolcott Shopping Center (did you know that was its name?). The old store
burned, prompting to Phillips to joke, “There’s no ‘old’ left.”

   As for his other store, Ducktails (1396 Route 7 South), Phillips said, “Stuff changes every year. Stop in and see.”

   Concerns for coming season? Two people mentioned downtown’s lack of parking, and generally congested traffic, which apparently is tough enough to negotiate for some people to avoid driving through the area. Middlebury drivers have learned to make it all work by being polite and letting other people go ahead and taking their turns, but as one person said, “You shouldn’t be depending on people being nice.”

   In the national perspective, though, that was a minor concern. Store owners said the biggest problem is that people just don’t seem to have the money to do as much shopping—probably the gas prices, said two—leading to lackluster sales over Christmas and for 2007 compared with 2006.

   But there’s always someone who sees the silver lining, or perhaps the silver lying in the cash drawer. Curavoo, noting that she deals in used merchandise, said, “I think that might benefit my store.”

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