SYDNEY, N.S.
Priyanka Kapahi does not know why sales at her family-owned Wicker Emporium factory outlet store in Sydney sank so low in the past three years — leaving little choice but to close it permanently.
Kapahi is the marketing director for the Halifax-based home décor and furniture chain, which operates shops in the greater Toronto, Ottawa and Halifax areas as well as in communities across Atlantic Canada.
“The store has been declining in the last few years so we tried to bring the new factory direct model there last year but it was still in a decline,” she said.
Wicker Emporium operated out of the Mayflower Mall for nearly 20 years before moving to the mall’s annex, Grand Lake Crossing, several years ago.
The much larger store footprint allowed the company to bring in more furniture and other merchandise for its customers.
She said the move across Grand Lake Road to the larger retail store did not have a negative impact on sales. In fact, Kapahi is still unsure what exactly caused the steep decline in the store’s fortunes.
“That store was actually a good move for us but it was the three or four years later when we saw the decline.”
The store, currently in the midst of a liquidation sale, plans to close on May 31. It will mean the elimination of two full-time and two part-time staffers at that location.
While Mayflower Mall general manager Greg Morrison said it’s unfortunate to lose Wicker Emporium as a longtime tenant, the mall overall is seeing sales higher at this point in the year compared to the same period in 2017.
“(Sydney) is still a good market for a lot of these stores when they come to the area,” he said. “We’re pretty optimistic here.”
A new home décor store opened in the mall this week and another retailer is expected to open in June.
Morrison said the Mayflower Mall, with 74 shops and stores, is in the unique position of being both a regional and a community shopping centre, making it an integral part of the local retail scene.
“People like to shop online, which is great, but there’s a large number of people, specifically here in Sydney, who like brick and mortar to actually visit these facilities — both from a retail perspective as well as socially.”
Even with Canadian consumers shopping online, e-commerce represented only 2.7 per cent of total retail trade in the country in February, amounting to $1.1 billion in spending, according to the latest figures released by Statistics Canada.
Online shopping has grown in popularity by about four per cent since this time last year but Kapahi said she doesn’t want to point to online-only retailers as the cause for the Sydney store’s failure.
But the cost of shipping products is another matter.
Large big box outlets will often offer free shipping for online purchases of $75 or more, and that is something that Wicker Emporium, a family business established in Halifax 45 years ago, can’t emulate.
“Let’s just be honest here,” said Kapahi, “we cannot compete with that especially in Sydney, which is one store in Cape Breton, for us to have that sort of shipping cost. It’s impossible (for us) to have free shipping (for purchases) over $75.”
Twitter: @cbpost_chris
