Overshadowed by Walmart, boutiques fight back with service, loyal clientele

The small retailers weren't expecting Black Friday to bring a windfall of customers. The jeweler, in fact, said he would close Thanksgiving weekend because foot traffic was so low last year.

To be sure, Black Friday has never been the day boutique retailers shine.

It's traditionally a feeding frenzy for consumers rushing national and big box chain stores with their loss-leading, door busting deals.

But this season more than ever there is competition for the flattening consumer wallet.

Boutique stores are finding it harder to survive in a climate where customers are looking for rock-bottom deals.

Metro Atlanta's jobless rate has skyrocketed to 10.4 percent, and continued worries about the economy are weighing down consumers, who are the life blood of the economy.

The situation has intensified the competition between big box chains and boutiques – the classic David and Goliath tale of shopping.

The retail darling to emerge from the recession is the Benton, Ark.-based king of discounters: Wal-Mart.

The world's largest retailer has thousands of U.S. stores and more overseas.

The recession put Wal-Mart's march towards dominating the retail world into high-speed.

Britt Beemer of America's Research Group estimates that more than 80 percent of U.S. shoppers will visit a Wal-Mart store this holiday season.

While other national chain and big box retailers are hurting from diminished earnings, Wal-Mart has been ringing up profits. Sales at U.S. stores have been growing at a rate of 1 to 2 percent per quarter.

Karen Brewer-Edwards is Wal-Mart's market manager for West Atlanta. Traffic is up across the region by 3 to 5 percent, she said. Average receipts and unit costs are down as food prices plummeted in the last year, but overall visits have increased.

The retail giant has been reinventing itself, nabbing major brands of electronics and adding a color-coordinated merchandising strategy that sorts products by price, color and brand.

The company has an exclusive clothing line by teen singing sensation Miley Cyrus. Her trendy t-shirts and leggings cost just $10 each.

On Black Friday, shoppers filled carts with $2 towels, $49 bikes, $9 life-sized dolls and $13 coffee and crock pots. Another discount made you look twice: a 2-quart crock pot for $4. A 46-inch, Sony Bravia LCD TV sold for $798.  Such deals have boosted the company's image and sales, Brewer-Edwards said.

By 5:15 a.m. Friday, shoppers at the Howell Mill Road store had depleted the inventory of deeply-discounted Sanyo 50-inch flat screen TVs, 15 minutes after the deals were released. Stores in Brewer-Edwards' area had an average of 10-15 of these TVs per store.

So how can a boutique store compete with cute fashions for $10?

It's hard, said Beemer, a retail expert who believes holiday buying will plunge 2.9 percent this holiday season.

Wal-Mart has consistently improved, he said, which is making it tougher on boutiques.

Boutiques can take the advantage with customer service. "You make customers feel more welcome with good service, employees and décor," he said.

Though this battle with Wal-Mart is nothing new, what is new in Atlanta is that empty retail projects are dotting Atlanta like a second perimeter freeway.

It seems there is less room for error in this precarious environment.

Enter Vickery Village. The Cumming development won awards for being the kind of mixed-use project that encouraged density, walking and the integration of work and play.

The development opened in 2006, and at its peak a year later had 17 retailers. But 12 retailers have since closed.

Best laid plans were hampered by the recession. And perhaps the project itself was more speculative than it first seemed.

Near the Atlanta Polo Club, the development sprouted between old farm houses, modest homes and subdivisions with names like Dressage, Derby and Prather Farms advertising homes ranging from the $180,000s to the $300,000s.

But the five-mile, curvy drive with twists and turns off of Ga. 400 shows Vickery Village is not on the beaten track. Vickery Village was created as a high-density project, though its surroundings are anything but.

Last year, after the developer hit financial turbulence, Wachovia foreclosed on the project – allowing retailers to jump ship before their long-term leases expired.

That caused a sudden exodus of shops, which was a tough blow to the center, said Coleman Morris, a vice president at Colliers Spectrum Cauble. She's now in charge of leasing the center, and signed four leases in the past year – two restaurants, an optometrist and a bicycle fitting specialist.

She believes some of the boutiques – which were mostly high end – would have closed anyway due to the economy.

"Retailers are really struggling because people are not spending that type of money on clothing anymore," she said. "I think it really hurt to have all of them move out at the same time. If the boutiques are going to make it, it's because they do have that bond to their customers and are giving them exceptional service."

The remaining retailers do have one thing in common: A track record and loyal following.

They are the kind of shops where clerks bring their dogs to work and know customers by name.

"We're doing very well," said Joshua Avella, a Columbian native and owner of Gems in Art. His dog was sitting nearby.

He and his wife Gladys fell in love with the project, and live in a townhome on the same street as their shop. He said clients come from Miami, Tennessee, South Carolina, California and New York for his handmade jewelry. He does hand-engraving, a rare skill anymore, which puts his custom pieces in demand.

"I'm busy all the time, so if I sell something [to a walk-in customer], that's a bonus," he said.

Jill Chatham owns The Flower Post. The florist has been in the business for close to 30 years. It's her loyal clientele – and wedding business – that keeps her afloat.

"We're very fortunate we do a lot of weddings," she said. "We don't depend on walk-in business as much as some of the others did."

At e.k. taylor, a women's apparel boutique, Erin Miller of Roswell was shopping with her mother, Charlene Costley of Billings, Mont.

They came just for a trunk show by Beija-Flor, a Brazilian line of jeans.

"I've been a client for eight years," said Miller of the store. "I love how they put together outfits, and I love these jeans."

For Black Friday, store owner Shelley Freeman was hosting "happy hour" from 2 to 6 p.m., hoping that after customers finished their early morning bargain hunting, they would come to e.k. taylor to wind down with a glass of wine and some personal attention.

Freeman plans to ride it out at Vickery Village, where loyal clients have become good friends.

"Wal-Mart and Target have hired true designers," she said. "What we have is service and originality."