A recession’s got nothing on a rainy spring when it comes to retail performance and this season, independent shopkeepers in soggy Toronto are cursing the weather.
Putting Mother Nature’s proclivity for precipitation in April and May aside, it wasn’t supposed to be this way. After almost two years of economic distress and Great Recession propaganda, the recent financial upturn was supposed to offer relief to stores who have watched their sales go down with the desire to spend. Buyers invested in extra stock for spring to satisfy suppressed shopping appetites but who feels hungry for a new photo print dress or fresh summer sandals when it’s still too damp to put away winter’s wools.
“People aren’t in the mood to shop,” says Daniela Bosco, owner of Chasse Gardée at Queen and Dovercourt. “When there’s no glimpse of sunshine, they see no need for new things.”
It’s a story heard in stores across the city over the last two months, from bike shops to clothing boutiques. As a result, retailers are getting antsy and that can mean only one thing: sale season is coming early this year. Ministry of the Interior has been offering up-to-85 per cent off designer furniture and home accessories since last Wednesday. Preloved’s 16th anniversary sale starts today and continues until Sunday (May 29) delivering 30 to 70 per cent off discounts. There are also deals to be had at The Clothing Show, taking place Friday through Sunday in the Queen Elizabeth Building at Exhibition Place.
Designers are doing it for themselves too. The Toronto Design Sample Sale launches tonight at 163 Sterling (studio 9B) between 6 pm and 11 pm and continues tomorrow and Friday featuring labels like Chloe Comme Parris, Krane and 18Waits.
“It’s a great way for local upcoming designers to make contact with the folks who support them,” says Justine Diener whose Diepo collection is also part of the sale. They will be offering old stock, samples, and new styles.
While Diener says she and partner Kristin Poon are careful not to offer marked down stock that’s currently hanging on local boutique racks at full price, other designers aren’t always so sensitive to their retailer relationships, putting more pressure on stores to discount early.
As June approaches though, the bigger issue for indie boutiques is keeping customers shopping at full price when big department stores prematurely pull the sale trigger. That’s why Bosco thinks a legislated sale period, like the systems that exist in some European cities, might work for Toronto.
“Ideally, sale season would start in mid-July and late January when everything has been on the shelf for a good while,” she says.
Until that happens, retail fortunes are in the hands of consumers. So if you like your city full of great indie boutiques, do our shopkeepers a favour and buy something at full price this spring.
