Mom and Pop: Spend More Green to Put Us in Red

By Christine Hetzel

U.S. retailers credit the holiday shopping season with up to 40 percent of their annual revenue, but with the economic quandary the country faces, getting back into the black is harder than ever.

According to SpendingPulse, a service provided by MasterCard Advisors, which tracks consumer spending in a range of categories, there was a 22.9 percent decline in apparel retailers, while electronics sales are down 22.3 percent in comparison to last year and luxury sales fell 34.5 percent.

It’s easy to see how the economic downturn is affecting large retailers and big name chains, but analysts find it hard to predict what will happen to small retailers on the street corners.

Mom and pop stores are known to add character to neighborhoods, but their dependency on holiday shopping raises some concern over their welfare and future.

“Most of the year is pretty slow,” said John McGuinness, owner of The McGuinness Irish Gift Shop in Brooklyn. “We definitely depend on holidays to bring in money.”

The biggest concern for small business owners seems to be the impact the media has on holiday shopping.

“You hear all this doom and gloom, and it makes you wonder who’s going to be buying anything,” said McGuinness.

However, if there is ever a time of year for hope, this may be it.

“People are still going to shop though,” said McGuinness. “They’re still going to spend their money somewhere, and for us it’s the last week before Christmas that we’re counting on. That’s when we see our biggest sales, so I’m not too worried right now.”