With a boutique full of colorful second-hand dresses, skirts and shoes, owner Barbara Blesi is focusing on the empty shop next door.
The adjacent space now has only a lone rack of clothes, but it will soon house more of Blesi’s upscale used items as she doubles her Second Chance Boutique on Fairmont Avenue in Bethesda.
Like many resale, pawn and consignment shops in Maryland, Blesi has reported a boom in sales — an anomaly in the retail sector, in which overall sales have been stagnant and owners have been cutting jobs.
Blesi, after seeing a significant sales increase the past year, is churning out more advertising and adding to her staff of three while many other retailers are cutting back expenses. Second Chance sells designer label items that are more expensive than many second-hand items, but still much less expensive than in a high-end department store.
‘‘Business has been growing and with the downturn in the economy, it’s just boomed.” Blesi said. ‘‘I’ve spent more on advertising than ever before. Every dollar is well spent. ... You have a lot of professionals that have to look good but have to watch their clothing dollars.”
Cynthia Scott-Johnson of Frederick, vice president of 3 Road Communications, said she has been a regular shopper at Second Chance Boutique for several years.
‘‘I knew this was a good deal, even when the economy was good,” Scott-Johnson said Saturday before sorting through racks of discount skirts and rows of bejeweled high heels.
Consumer spending in clothing, furniture and home furnishings, and department stores dropped last month from March 2007, according to a U.S. Census report released Monday. Shoppers spent $18.6 billion on clothing last month, compared with $18.9 billion in March 2007.
Like thrift stores, discount retailers are more than holding their own. Sales in that sector grew to $28.1 billion in February from $25.9 billion in February 2007, according to the report.
The resale and thrift industry is one of a few segments of the retail industry that usually withstands a general downturn, according to the National Association of Retail and Thrift shops. Instead of suffering from consumer spending cutbacks, thrift and resale stores tend to draw more customers during downturns because of the price discounts, the association reported recently.
‘‘This has always been a recession-proof industry,” said the association’s executive director, Adele Meyer, in an e-mail. ‘‘Most of the industry has seen an increase in both suppliers and sales. ... One of the foremost reasons that resale thrives in a slow economy is simple — people love a bargain.”
After working at a children’s consignment boutique in Frederick for a few years, Susan McCarthy saw business picking up this past year and quickly opted to invest in the store.
One of two co-owners of Enkore Kids, a second-hand shop in Westview Promenade plaza, McCarthy is helping the store make the transition from its leased 1,200-square-foot space to a larger building of its own in Boonsboro, about 15 miles away. The extra 1,800 square feet in Boonsboro will allow McCarthy and co-owner Jennifer Guenther to sell maternity wear and larger sizes for older children, as well as more brands.
‘‘The business was picking up and I decided now was the time to buy into it,” McCarthy said in her shop, near a pile of recently donated children’s clothes on her checkout counter. ‘‘People want us to sell more stuff. They’re asking for more brands of car seats. They want to bring in their maternity clothes.”
McCarthy also said more customers are purchasing items that can be reused, such as adjustable car seats, both to save money and for ‘‘eco-friendly” reasons to avoid waste.
Foot traffic has also picked up at Vogue Revisited, a high-end boutique in Baltimore, said owner Chris Anderson. Anderson opened the shop in 1993 to sell women’s accessories and clothing , from no-name brands to Jimmy Choo designer shoes, and also noted a small boom during the 2001 recession.
‘‘My business keeps growing and growing,” Anderson said.
Pawn Shop of Frederick, part of a chain with headquarters in Texas, has seen an influx of customers both selling their items for extra cash and purchasing cheaper-than-retail goods over the past three months, said manager Jeremy Snowberger.
‘‘I do see signs of how bad things are,” Snowberger said. ‘‘A lot of people are coming in just for some gas money.”
Carrie Perkins, co-owner of Pixie Dust, a children’s consignment and toy shop in Brunswick, said business has been steady since it opened on Potomac Street in July, slowing in the winter and picking up in recent weeks.
Roughly 75 consigners from Frederick to Hagerstown regularly bring items to Pixie Dust for either a check or credit to use in the store with a 10 percent discount. The store tries to select items in near-perfect condition, Perkins said, with brands such as Old Navy, Gap and Gymboree for resale at 50 percent less than retail.
‘‘Consigners are all saying the same thing — that times are tough,” Perkins said. ‘‘We write them a check and they’ll turn right around and spend it in our store. They know what items their kids need.”
This report originally appeared in the Business Gazette.
