The Washington Post April 8, 2004 Thursday
Copyright 2004 The Washington Post
The Washington Post
April 8, 2004 Thursday
Final Edition
SECTION: Howard Extra; T12
LENGTH: 1219 words
HEADLINE: Getting Their Foot in the Door; Small Vendors See Opportunity at Mall as They Look to Sell Shoppers on Variety
BYLINE: Richard Sine, Special to The Washington Post
BODY:
At the Mall in Columbia, where time multiplied by space equals money, few things move slower, or cost more, than Ma Ke Lu's pastoral oil paintings.
Lu painted the bamboo forests and lotus ponds of the Beijing countryside at the height of China's Cultural Revolution in the early 1970s, a time when prominent artists who refused to churn out Communist propaganda were imprisoned or killed. Fearing persecution, Lu never sold his work. But he was young and didn't need much money. "We were true artists then," he said. "It was the best time of my life."
Most customers at Lu's stall pass up his work for the less expensive, mass-produced drawings of celebrities, such as Muhammad Ali and Mariah Carey, that he also sells. So a large portion of Lu's $3,400 monthly rent goes to display original paintings that rarely sell. But Lu is reluctant to put them on sale. "I have to maintain the integrity of my work," he said.
It would be hard to imagine any manager at the mall's big chain stores thinking the same way. But the kiosks and pushcarts that fill out extra floor space in the mall are a haven for small-business owners who are charting their own paths to success. They endure long hours, high rents and a high loss from theft, they say, for a chance at the mall's enormous foot traffic -- an estimated 10 million visits a year.
"If you're an entrepreneur with a good product and customer service, you can build a good clientele here. You can become really profitable," said Bill Dove, who founded Acuity Custom Embroidery, a custom logo business, at the mall two years ago but has since sold it and is working part time there.
The mall's nearly 30 pushcart owners say they pay $2,500 a month and generally a percentage of their sales above a certain point. Lu pays a higher monthly rent because his stall is larger than a pushcart. During the peak holiday season, rents more than triple.
It's a hefty sum, but the mall permits short-term leasing, allowing a business to test the waters with a much smaller investment than is required to stock and open an entire store. Iris Shamiri has made full use of the flexibility afforded by a short-term lease. In September, she rented a pushcart for just 10 days to gauge demand for her shimmery Indian scarves and curtains. Shoppers snapped them up, and by Christmas, she said, Padmini Designs had broken even -- an impressive feat for any business.
In mid-March, Shamiri ended her monthly lease. She is traveling to India for three months, where she will design a new line of products. When she returns, she plans to rent another cart, though she has also inquired about leasing a store at the mall. "I can't be a big chain," she said. "One of my selling points is that my products are not mass-produced."
Jan Cullen Ahearn opened her first pushcart business, called My Irish Cottage, 16 years ago at a New Jersey mall. Her husband, an FBI agent, gets transferred frequently. "Whenever he'd get transferred, I'd set up a pushcart," she said.
Ahearn sets up shop only during the holiday months and in the weeks leading up to St. Patrick's Day, when revenue is highest for her business. Each January, she visits Ireland with her mother, sister and sister-in-law -- all of whom also run Irish-themed stores or carts in New Jersey and Pennsylvania -- to visit relatives and choose new products. The rest of the time, she can stay at home in Great Falls with her four children.
"My kids say I don't have to get a 'real job,' " she said, joking.
Rouse Co., which owns the Mall in Columbia, first set up pushcarts at its Faneuil Hall mall in Boston in the mid-1970s to generate revenue and develop small local tenants, said Tony Summers, retail marketing manager at the mall.
Many pushcarts eventually evolved into stores at the Mall in Columbia and elsewhere. Currently the only store at the Columbia mall to have started as a pushcart is Kokopelli, a jewelry and clothing retailer.
Gurucharan Singh Soi, owner of the Bombay Bazaar pushcart, gets his products from dealers he knows from his home state of Gujarat in India. If his handicrafts sell well, he will open his own store by Christmas.
"The big chain stores, they can afford so much advertising," he said. "When the customers come here for those stores, that's when they see the merchandise from newcomers like me."
Indeed, the pushcarts play a particular role in the mall's retail ecosystem. If the department stores, with their famous names and big advertising budgets, are the flagships that generate foot traffic and other stores are like the smaller ships that cluster to absorb the overflow, then the pushcarts are like the minnows that scavenge on the ships' hulls. They don't get much fame or respect -- they're not even listed in the store directory -- but if they're scrappy enough, they can make a killing.
Dove has also watched carts close in just a few days after hardly making a sale. He says the key to success is having an exciting concept that will entice the most distracted shopper.
"You're not an established business like a Victoria's Secret or Godiva chocolates," Dove said. "You've got no product recognition, no brand recognition. You have to pass the concept directly onto the customer. So you have to be out here awhile. You've got to tackle the customer, grab them, get them involved in your product. They'll walk past you, go down 20 feet, then turn around and say, 'I could use that!' "
He lures shoppers with a big computer screen that displays the logos he designs for customers. Other successful vendors sell colorful jewelry or flashy cell phone covers. Some even waylay passersby for a personal sale. At Nails Affinity, saleswomen buff the nails of any customer who slows down for a moment. The aggressive approach lends a taste of the ancient bazaar to the first floor of one of Maryland's largest retail centers.
Pushcart vending can be a grueling life. The mall's management requires vendors to remain open during all mall hours -- 111/2 hours a day for six days a week and seven hours on Sunday. It also enforces a dress code for vendors and patrols the carts to ensure that merchandise is neatly kept.
Leaving the stall even for a moment requires finding another vendor to look after the cart. Many vendors stay at the carts nearly the entire time every day or share the hours with a spouse or other relative.
"The challenge is finding reliable workers who will stay here after you train them," Dove said.
By opening itself up to small businesses, malls often attract a kind of personality that one rarely sees behind the counter at the chain stores. Although he lived in China until 1988, Lu, who is 50, has the long hair, the wire-rimmed glasses and the philosophical and sometimes tempestuous mood of a Western artist.
"It was a total accident," Lu said, a bit impatiently, when asked how he ended up at the mall. "My life has always been like this. I go to an unfamiliar place and just start working there."
The long working hours and the pedestrian tastes of many mall shoppers have worn on Lu, though, and he has thought about returning to Beijing. That's why he likes the short-term lease. Like the lotus on the ponds he paints, he drifted here and can drift away.
"Any time I want to pack up and go home, I go home. I don't really want to do this my whole life."
LOAD-DATE: April 8, 2004