Episode 17: BUY Local or BYE Local: Why Shopping Local is Your Community's Lifeline
When you buy from a chain store or online, the money leaves your community instantly. When you buy local, that same dollar circulates 3.5 times in your community. That's not just business - that's your town's future.
In this episode of Main Street Matters, Terresa Zimmerman and Peter Rose, co-owner of Chelsea Group in Wyandotte, Michigan, shares his family's 80-year retail journey and delivers an important, maybe even urgent, message about the importance of shopping local. From his grandfather's humble beginnings as a Boy Scout supplier in 1943 to today's retail challenges, Peter reveals how local businesses are the heartbeat of thriving communities and why every purchase decision matters.
What You'll Get in This Episode:
How did a single store in 1943 grow into 23 stores across Detroit, and why did they return to two stores today?
What's the story behind the women's store transformation from "The Empire Room" to "Willow Tree"?
What made Wyandotte's three menswear stores on one block work together instead of compete?
Why does Peter choose in-person service over online sales?
How has Chelsea Group managed to maintain relevance across multiple generations of shoppers and staff?
What's the "beach ball" analogy and how does it relate to local business health?
Why does buying local bring 3.5 times more impact than shopping at national chains?
What challenges do local retailers face with tariffs and staffing today?
How did Peter promote local shopping through writing and the "Love Wyandotte" initiative?
Despite modern retail challenges, what's driving the business's recent growth?
Featured Store:
Chelsea Group – Chelsea Menswear and Willow Tree women’s boutique
Peter Rose – Owner
2944 Biddle, Wyandotte, MI 48192
+1.734.282.7755
https://www.chelseamenswear.com/
https://www.instagram.com/chelseamenswear
https://www.instagram.com/willowtreewyandotte/
https://www.willowtreefashions.com/
Mentions in this episode:
American Independent Business Alliance
https://amiba.net/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/american-independent-business-alliance/
Institute for Local Self-Reliance
https://ilsr.org/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/institute-for-local-self-reliance/posts/?feedView=all
Connect with Us:
Main Street Matters Podcast:
Website: www.mainstreetmatters.co
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mainstreetmatters1
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/main-street-matters
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/@MainStreetMatters_MSM
Host - Terresa Zimmerman:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/terresachristensonzimmerman
Listen to the episode here:
Featured Store:
Watch the episode here:
Full Transcript:
Peter Rose:
The profitability from each purchase you make leaves the state. It leaves the city, the region, the state. Three and a half times more money stays local when you buy local.
Terresa Zimmerman:
This episode of Main Street Matters is brought to you by Wood Underwear, Marquesi Jin Frati Neckwear, and Inspiro Tequila. I'm your host, Terresa Zimmerman. Welcome to Main Street Matters. I am here with Peter Rose. He is the co-owner with his wife of Chelsea Group, which includes Chelsea Men's Wear and Tuxedos and Willow Tree Women's Boutique in Wyandotte, Michigan. I hope I got all that right.
Peter Rose:
Absolutely.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Okay, great. Thank you for joining us, Peter. Appreciate it so much.
Peter Rose:
You're very welcome. Glad to do it.
Terresa Zimmerman:
And Happy New Year too, right?
Peter Rose:
Yes.
Terresa Zimmerman:
where we're all starting back at zero. So let's get right in. Can you just tell us a little bit about Chelsea Group? And I know it's two stores, so you can go where you'd like with that.
Peter Rose:
Okay. I won't give you all the detail, but I will tell you that my grandfather started this business in 1943. So if you can picture that time frame, we're right smack dab in the middle of World War II. Wow. He wanted to come but he had some sort of minor thing that disqualified him from being accepted to go fight, which I think is just a remarkable thing. He wanted to go fight. It's an interesting statement of the times. But he started this primarily menswear store, but back then it catered to Boy Scouts. This was a Boy Scout supplier. My father is the son of Benjamin Rose and his sister, Mina, became the two family offspring that came into the family business. And eventually that included my mother and Mina's husband, Joe. So there were four people who were earning a living from this company after my grandfather died. And then I joined the company and my cousin, my counterpart on the Shugall side, joined the business. So through that whole period, that's so my father joined this company in 62. And then I joined only 10 years later. So in 1972, I became a menswear retailer to learn that this is a very interesting and very addictive kind of a project, an ongoing project that just never ends. Hopefully it never ends. The women's store was in the basement of our original store, which is where I'm sitting right now. All of this that's down here that I'm looking at right now was strictly for women. It was called the Emerald Room.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Now, Peter, did Mina start that, or did your dad start that?
Peter Rose:
Yeah. My father didn't have any knowledge or awareness, didn't have any. He would have not been able to do it, but Mina did. She had her own ideas, very headstrong, confident, assertive woman, and she did what she did her thing. But it was catered by the time, at the end of the 60s, as we approach 1968, the men's business was doing so well that it needed more space. And that kind of urged my father to figure out, well, maybe we could expand it into the downstairs. He was obsessed with gaining the business of young men. And that was the baby boom generation that was all kind of coming of age at that time. And he wanted to be the star they went to. And so it was very, very opportune for him for his timing being in the business. He had built the menswear store up to something that was exceeding his expectations every single season, just blowing away everything that, you know, he planned modestly and tripled it. So it just was because of the group that was coming online. The all swell of the baby boom generation was perfectly timed for his entrance into this business. Well, they decided to move the women's business out of this store, and instead of it being called the Empire Room, it became Willow Tree. And that's when it started, 1968. And then the store continued on, and we grew into a very large organization. We had as many as 23 stores. When we hit our peak, we had 23 stores, 16 women's and seven men's stores. And by 1990, that all started to come undone. Well, that's the story that came up to that. So what we have right now is the two stores. So through all of that, through all the ups and downs, I have continued to be employed here and I've gotten to do my thing for all of this time. So that's over 50 years. That's 52 years now doing this. So I was 53. I'm kind of grateful for that. I think that's remarkable.
Terresa Zimmerman:
That's amazing. So the women's store was originally called the Empire Room?
Peter Rose:
Yes. It was aimed at a more mature customer. And right around then, my mother joined the company as well. So when that happened, these were two relatively young women who were like young 30s who were just kind of having a ball. They'd go to New York on buying trips and would be wined and dined by the vendors who used to do that excessively. They hit on a couple of items that just exploded the willow tree from being kind of, I don't want to say dowdy, but it was definitely not cutting edge. It was not where the action was.
Peter Rose:
So when that happened, we switched from catering to 50 year olds and up. to catering to 16 to 25 year olds and not being able to keep up with it.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Do you remember what those items were?
Peter Rose:
Madewell pants. Madewell was carpenter pants. Another thing called Palmettos, which were just chinos. There was a store in Boston that they emulated. They went there and saw, my parents went there and saw this place just so full of energy, people everywhere. And they latched on and just, it took off. So that's what happened there.
Terresa Zimmerman:
That's great. How much of that did your grandfather get to see? Was he still around during some of that?
Peter Rose:
No, he didn't see any of that. He saw the expansion. He realized that the company was doing extremely well. My father was calls back to work here. He was the manager of the Springfield Symphony Orchestra, of all things, in Springfield, Massachusetts.
Peter Rose:
And he was doing very well there. He had only been there for about a year and a half when the call came. But in that year and a half, he turned that organization around from losing money to being a profitable organization. And they were sorry to see him go, but he had to come home because his father got sick. And so when he came here, he was just, okay, let's dig in here. And he found out he was kind of good at it.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Yeah. I guess so, 23 stores. So all in neighboring cities and towns, all in Michigan?
Peter Rose:
It's all, essentially, all in the Detroit metro area.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Wow, okay, that's quite important.
Peter Rose:
Which is actually very indicative of what retail was back then.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Right.
Peter Rose:
There were many chains like ours, many, maybe not as big as us, but there were stores in the menswear industry like Hughes and Hatcher, which opened, which had While we had 3,000 to 5,000 square foot stores, they had 20,000 square foot stores. Very different operation. But there were 35 of those, and it was independently owned. There were no national chains. The national chains were Penny's, Sears, Montgomery Ward. all at that level. And nobody was in the apparel business that we were. So we defined the niche and we served it. All of us independent retailers served the needs. So yeah, it was like an almost I mean, there was just an endless demand from all over these, you know how the concrete jungle goes and you're driving along and now you're in one city, now you're in another, now you're in another. It's just all part of the same metropolis. And each one of them had retailers that catered to the needs. We virtually never stepped on each other, which is just fascinating to me that we managed to do that. But it was very lucrative. It was very, very lucrative for those independent owners. until it all started to shift. It shifted. I didn't really realize it until afterwards, looking back, what was happening.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Is that shift pretty clear cut to you now?
Peter Rose:
Absolutely. Wall Street discovered the menswear industry and the womenswear industry. And with the advent of the malls, the operators of the malls, the developers, realized that they had a tiger by the tail if they could hook up with not independents, but with nationals who were looking to expand too. So it was like these malls realized that it didn't start out that way. When they built those malls, we were in on the ground floor of those things. And among us, there were other retailers just like us. All the different women's wear stores and the men's wear stores that served the local community were in those malls. And there were hardly any national chains. But very quickly, within five years, they had realized what they had. So when they opened up a mall in one city after another, it was like giving the space, you know, providing the space for the demand that Wall Street wanted.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Yeah. Well, and then you ended up with the cookie cutter mall in all these locations. They didn't have to think about it anymore. It was just a whole package.
Peter Rose:
which made them, the developers, a tremendous amount of money. That's what happened there. If I had to do over again now, I don't know that it was the right course to take. But on the other hand, I'm still here. So it's kind of easy to sit back and look back and think, was that the right thing? You know, it cost us over $100,000 to build out a store and a mall, and it wasn't our property. We were just taking our money and building ourselves a store to operate out of. But when we left, they took it and rented it to somebody else with renovations again.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Right.
Peter Rose:
Quite a racket.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Yeah, absolutely. So did you always know that you were going to join the business?
Peter Rose:
No.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Did you grow it now?
Peter Rose:
Absolutely not. I wasn't really paying that much attention as a kid, and even through my teens, when I started high school, I wasn't really thinking so much about this as a career. But to be candid, I wasn't really thinking about anything as a career. I did not know what I was going to do. And when I graduated, I came to work here as what was called a May Project, where seniors got out a month early. They ended their school year on May 1st, and they had a mission. They were given the mission to go out and find a job. And it was supposed to be an unpaid job, which I conveniently neglected to tell my father. And I joined the company and also enrolled to go to Wayne State University to take some classes there. And halfway through the year, one term, I decided I don't want to go to school. I had gone to a boarding school and I lived away from home in a dormitory. And the last thing I wanted was to repeat that. I just could not stand the idea of going back into that environment. So I didn't. I got my education right here.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Yeah, on the job training.
Peter Rose:
Yeah, at a good time because I was, you know, I was needed. I don't know, you know, my father was a young man at that point. We were only, you know, 20 years apart. So it's, It's kind of remarkable to think about what that meant, how old he was when all of this was happening. He was in his young to mid thirties. And then he had a tiger by his tail. So there wasn't enough manpower in the business to people that he could count on, that he could, you know, totally trust and assign and delegate to, but know that it was, you know, there was some passion here too. So he, I don't know what would have happened if I hadn't been here. That's really the truth. I don't know how they would have grown. They wouldn't have grown. They wouldn't have been able to.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Yeah, it's a big issue is, you know, what do you do with your store when you don't have enough staff or when you're ready to move on? I mean, that whole succession planning thing, it's a big topic.
Peter Rose:
Absolutely. Not just for planning for transition. It's for planning while you're here. I mean, I'd like to open up a new store, but I don't really have enough help that I can, I can't take anyone from these stores without hurting these stores. However, back then hiring for the stores was an infinitely different proposition. Just infinitely different. It was a lot of people wanted to work in menswear or womenswear. That was a, was a hot category. It was a hot area. Trips to the magic show were a very different experience in the 80s. Very different experience to what they are today. What it is today. The place was so electric. There was so much traffic and there were peoples doing fashion shows all over the place in the halls. Lots of loud music with fashion shows going on regularly and sometimes interfering with each other, but usually not. They timed it pretty well.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Yeah.
Peter Rose:
Just a beehive of activity. I would get there at eight in the morning and the show ends at six o'clock and I was there at eight and I left at six.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Yeah.
Peter Rose:
And because I was just like, I was like completely captured.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Yeah, well, and drinking from the fire hose, there's so much it sounds like. I mean, I've only been going to these trade shows for about, you know, 11, 12 years now. And a lot of that time, it was really quiet. The last few years, it's been pretty exciting comparatively.
Peter Rose:
Yeah, the show that we both attend now, I think they did a masterful job of taking it from a thing that was nothing to being the show. It really is the show for us, especially for our region. But I think you know this, you would know this more than I do. You have customers that you see there from all over the place, don't you?
Terresa Zimmerman:
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, it replaced Vegas and New York really quickly as the main show to go to. Yeah. So when did you take your first buying trip?
Peter Rose:
Went with my father in, I think, 1974. Okay. And I was just tagging along. I was fascinated by it and I was watching and watching what my father and my uncle did, how they went about this whole process. Yeah. I had never really thought of it before. And even when they said, would you like to come to New York and come to a show with us? I didn't know what it meant. I had no idea. Back then it was at the Statler Hilton in New York City. The show was called the NAMSB Show, which was the National Association of Men's Sportswear Buyers. But there were suit companies and sport coat companies and outerwear and all the different things that are needed. But they all showed that there were ballroom areas, but there were also in the rooms, up and down these elevators. Talk about crowded. That was another wild experience. So that made me want to transition from being a salesperson in the store to, yeah, I want some of this. This is really fun. This is really cool. So I started. And eventually within I don't know, I don't know, probably 77, 76, 76, I was given the responsibility for the sportswear in the stores. And by that time, I think we had four men's stores, three. We had three.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Given responsibility, so buying, merchandising, the whole P&L.
Peter Rose:
Yeah.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Wow, cool.
Peter Rose:
Yeah. So that was the area that I gained my experience in is the crystal balling of it all. There's a financial counterpoint to this, of course, but the ability to tell stories, to walk into a booth and see, to understand the story that that vendor is trying to tell, and then try to bring that energy back the passion like you, Reb, and I love what you have, and to say, here's what this is all about, just as you tried to do with me. So I figure I don't consider myself to be all that unique of a human being if I react to it. then I figure other people will too. And sure enough, they do. They love knowing. They love understanding why this particular brand is in the store. Why do you like this brand? What's so good about it? What's so good about this fabric? Everything about it. So yeah, I got very hooked on it pretty quickly. And I think it was all young men's. To the detriment of this store that remains here, the store has, was, and always has been a men's store aimed at a higher-aged clientele. When I joined the company, I wasn't working here. But there were young men, and they successfully kind of kept the store from getting old with its clientele. And so far, and we're doing that today still. We're still managing to find a way of bringing in things that don't just appeal to people who are about to retire and move away or become snowbirds. That's one of the most daunting things, the people that are good customers, but they're not here for half the year.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Right. Yeah. You get to a certain age, you're level, and you've got the luxury of not having to live in winter. Right? Yeah. But for a store like yours, you've got to continue with the local and who's staying. That's the younger group. And how are you doing that? Is that because you've got younger staff? How are you attracting that?
Peter Rose:
Yeah, about 10 years ago, maybe nine, my son-in-law, who had not yet even, I didn't even know if he was gonna, we didn't know if he was gonna marry my daughter, my second, my youngest daughter. But he was dissatisfied with where he was working. So at family gatherings, we knew that. And yet he would talk about menswear, how much he enjoyed his time spent at JCPenney. He enjoyed, he got his feet, he got his feet wet with that. And, but he always dressed, He was always the best dressed guy when we would have our family gatherings. I'd be very casual. He'd have on something much dressier. And we asked him, hey, what do you think? Want to come work here? He didn't hesitate. So I was very fortunate. So he's just turned 36. So yeah, he was like 26, 27 when he joined the company. That's a young man on the floor and he took to it very, very quickly and very assertively. So yeah, he's got, he's brought a lot of energy to this. So he's, that's who travels around with me when we're at the show. Um, so.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Well, good for him for dressing up for his maybe then future father-in-law, right? Um, now, you know, making his purchases at JC Penney's. I think you've probably cured him of that by now, but, uh,
Peter Rose:
But it was good experience. It did show him how a retail store operates. And that's his primary role here. As of right now, it's to manage the store. And then we have help that is sufficiently experienced to fill in while we're gone, which isn't for very long.
Terresa Zimmerman:
It is phenomenal, you know, when you're not in the business. And I, you know, recall most of my life I wasn't. And so I recall the days you go past a boutique, you don't have a clue what is required for running one of these stores. And then you get into one and you go, oh my gosh, how many hats, how many different hats do I have to wear every single day and get it right? How much education would that really cost you if you went and tried to specialize in every single area?
Peter Rose:
You can't. I don't think it's possible. I think the whole idea of going to school for retail. You have to understand the financial. The best reason that's important is for understanding the financial ins and outs. You know, money is, it's all about cash flow and P&L statement management, making sure that you are never in the red, making sure that whatever it takes, you have to be in the black, or all of a sudden credit dries up. So you need to understand that. before you even start to apply the layers that I still very much enjoy. I still very much enjoy walking up these aisles and seeing the endless creativity that is thrown at me to figure out. I take notes on stuff that could fill 20 stores. I can't buy it all. But I feel like I'm obsessive about making sure that I am not ignoring things that I don't buy. Why aren't I buying those things? Have you even looked at it? You know, if you're not looking, if you're not seriously considering things, then I think you're being lazy. Evidence helped me to re-energize that, too, with younger things.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Well, so what's the newest or sort of most out-of-the-box thing you brought into the store recently?
Peter Rose:
Well, I wouldn't even call it out of the box, but Barber, the brand name Barber was a brand that I had pretty much in my own head, shame on me, pigeonholed as being something that appealed to hunters. And essentially, that was the niche. That particular crowd that hunted, whether they would wear it hunting all the time or not, but that was that type of person.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Yeah, I've got a barber vest behind me right here.
Peter Rose:
It proved itself instantly that it's not just that. Boy, that was a big hit. I hadn't sat and looked at the line, so I didn't even understand what the price points were, which proved to not be of a concern to me at all. So that's a good example right there. That's one of the things that's been very, very good.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Yeah, well, I think they do a good job of diversifying their target audience, too, with that brand.
Peter Rose:
Yep. And they have a women's line, which I'm considering adding to our women's store. Yes. We'll see. I haven't decided that yet. It's about to start. The whole show schedule starts.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Yeah.
Peter Rose:
Very, very soon now, right?
Terresa Zimmerman:
Yes, that's right. But they do do some beautiful women's things. Mostly, I can't go shopping because it's too attractive.
Peter Rose:
But it's too dangerous.
Terresa Zimmerman:
That's right. You make your money on the buy. It's easy to buy too much, but if you don't do it well, you can lose a lot. For a good reason, I work in menswear, so I don't have to go into the women's stores and spend everything I make. So how are you applying technology to your store? Do you have technology tools? Do you use tech? It requires glasses to be taken off.
Peter Rose:
I don't believe in selling online. Okay. And we tried. We really tried again during COVID. I had tried to do something online and realized that it's too hard. That's basically what my attitude was. But when COVID came along, we were thinking, we didn't know how long that was going to last, and we just decided that it's time, we got to try. Well, even then, even then, it was like putting a round peg into a square hole. I don't want to sell people things online. I want them to come in and let me help them or let my staff help them. I want them to see the merchandise, feel it, smell it, see how it fits, understand what all of the attributes of it are because you're actually having somebody explain it to you. I will never understand. I'm getting to be an older, you know, I'm not a kid. So I think this happens in every generation where the older people don't latch on to the technology that's now happening. But I still can't, I think this is a little different. The transition that's happening right now is radically different than just having a new idea for a brand, which is still fitting within the same basic model. What's troubling me is that it's every single niche of every service you can imagine, every product you can imagine, has its own website that exists apart from the retail landscape. It's direct to retail. So if you want to have your home remodeled, go to this website. New bathroom, dog food. dog care, you know, every niche you can imagine is all being directed away from local communities and away from the whole concept of having, you know, when we were operating all those stores, I was virtually never in my stores. I shouldn't say never in them. I would visit them, but I didn't spend hour after hour after hour in them anymore. I didn't come in at 10 in the morning and work until nine at night anymore at those stores. I worked in my office, and I would go visit those stores to make sure that they didn't have questions or to tell them about different things, just to see how they're doing. I didn't interact with customers at that point. It wasn't me that was helping a customer that came in. It was the staff that was there. And so I realized when I came back to work at this store, which is now back 1995, I just, that's it. I'm on the, I'm now on the sales floor. That's what I do now. And I found that not only do I like it, but customers like it. We're actually talking to representation from the ownership of the company. So, and because of what I know in the apparel field, after doing all of the buying I've done over all these years, I was able to not sell them on anything, but educate them. Just tell them, you know, that's really what it is. It's sharing. I think successful selling is really more about sharing your enthusiasm and your passion for things more than it is talking people into anything. You know, we're there to feel, I'm here to react to you. You come in, I'm trying to figure out when you say something, what is it exactly you're talking about? Who is the customer you're buying this for, you know, or you? So I think that's really a sad thing to lose. And then when you expand that statement out beyond that into the community and you think about what a downtown area is comprised of, which is a whole bunch of stores like mine, different fields, but, you know, which, by the way, I should tell you, when I joined the company in 1972, there were three men's stores on this block.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Oh, my gosh. OK.
Peter Rose:
So when people from the region thought of menswear, they came right to Wyandotte. Sure. You know, each store had its own final call.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Easy walk, easy day, easy week.
Peter Rose:
Yeah. We were our own little mini mall, but there were three men's stores right in a row, right on the same block. It was pretty amazing.
SPEAKER_02:
Yeah.
Peter Rose:
So people would come and the same thing. And we were all not dumb. We, you know, if we didn't have it, we would refer them to the other stores and that over that overfill of a, of a funnel.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Yeah.
Peter Rose:
The splash over is what makes. the town hum. That's what makes it all work. So when you take away the traffic for stores that are all about this passion for whatever niche that we get attached to, and I've been in some doozies of stores that have nothing to do with what I do that just dazzles me and gives me ideas galore about Why didn't I think of that? Just ways of displaying, you know, crazy, quirky things that people do that just, that just, that wakes me up, man. I still live for that. Finding those kinds of places in any niche.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Yeah, yeah. Well, that people part of it and that discovery part of it is you can't replace that without being in person. I mean, that in-person experience is unique. I think, you know, certainly for me, I don't go online and say, oh, what treasure can I find today?
Peter Rose:
A lot of people do, though. That's what they do. I have customers who shop here, and I ask them, hey, what about your wife? She should go check out Willowtree. Nah, she does everything online. I mean everything. She doesn't do anything. She never goes shopping anymore. She just buys it, and if she doesn't like it, she sends it back. So that's an unsustainable model. But what that does is direct enough business away from this Main Street that it makes it harder and harder for the Main Street to survive. So once they have you and the Main Street stores are gone, theoretically, they will then be able to change that policy. They won't be taking things back quite so readily. It's got to be a nightmare.
Terresa Zimmerman:
All it's done is make the shipping companies really, really wealthy. But let's dive in a little bit more to that. You're passionate about local and Main Street, as am I. You know, you've been probably passionate about it more actively than I have for longer, you know, being involved in the organizations that you have. Maybe talk a little bit about, you know, who you've kind of aligned with. You've got some logos on your website, Amoeba and the Institute for Self-Reliance, local self-reliance, right?
Peter Rose:
I'll tell you, ILSR are rock stars. They are out there trying to push anti-monopoly laws. They do everything. But they're particularly passionate about retailers and what market share we have. That's where I found IndieBound from, by the way. IndieBound for books.
Terresa Zimmerman:
IndieBound for books, yes. Oh, there.
Peter Rose:
Yep. So it's so easy. It's just so easy to, you don't have to go to a big box store and you don't have to go to Amazon, which apparently is on track to have 80% of the market this year. 80% of the book market will be in Amazon's hands. So what remains, that 20% though, there aren't as many Barnes and Nobles. I'm sorry, this is a tangent. But there aren't as many Borders bookstores and Barnes and Nobles. So the beneficiaries of that are the independents. And there has been a resurgence of independent stores. So you're starting to see that same love of books and the owner sitting there telling you about this particular book and just,
Terresa Zimmerman:
Oh my gosh, and they get authors in and they do things like libraries used to do, getting kids groups in. I mean, it's amazing the community that the independent bookstores build. And yeah, it's a little bit of a tangent, but I love it. But tell me a little bit more about the American Independent Business Alliance.
Peter Rose:
Yeah, it's amoeba.net if anyone wants to check that out. They are a very different organization than they were when I launched, but they are still religiously keeping it going. They are continuing to be a resource, a hub that independents can participate with. They are not focused specifically on apparel. They are about any small business that wants to have a bigger umbrella under which to operate can go there. Every year they have themes that they kind of launch like, I don't know, we got the idea of having a solstice day from them, celebrating solstice in kind of a wacky sorcerer kind of a thing. It was really kind of a fun thing. We haven't done that in a while. But they have themes that they call it Planned Friday instead of Black Friday. Oh, okay. So, because you don't, the very name, that's another for instance, Black Friday is just such a, non-imaginative thing. Black Friday is being talked about in July now. We're having a Black Friday sale. What does that mean?
Terresa Zimmerman:
It's just so transactional, too, and it's so against what the benefits and strengths of Main Street really are.
Peter Rose:
So when you talk about Plaid Friday, you're talking about something a little more quirky. and a little more unique. You can get your customers to put on a plaid flannel shirt and come on the shop just to have fun, just to be. Yeah.
Terresa Zimmerman:
And if you don't have one, we have one for you.
Peter Rose:
That's right. That's exactly right. Love it. They have a lot of educational materials. They have stuff that you're seeing behind me here. That's what they did. I don't know if these are available anymore. This was the prior regime. This is what I learned about when I went to, they had a conference and that's where I learned about them and we went to it and absolutely fell in love with it. Just became very obsessed with not just local first, but well, it started out that way. Think local first. And it became so rapidly think local only because the The amount of money that is behind the trend to grab all the money is pretty overwhelming. That's just another example. I'd say it's a very good snapshot example of what's happening in America. So you have to fight back against that. You have to insist on it. Retailers like us exist because we insist on it. We stay here because we demand it. We're not going anywhere.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Yeah, well, you know, it's a little hard to, I mean, it can be a challenge to live by if you're not intentional about it. I mean, I know when I first started, when I first started going to trade shows, first question that some of the buyers would ask me is, are you on Amazon? Well, we're not. We chose not to be. And then I asked them if they, do you buy on Amazon? And they're like, well, what does that have to do with anything? So I want to jump back to technology though. So technology in your business, that can be more than just selling online. So do you have tools and techniques and things that you rely on to run your business?
Peter Rose:
We use mainly, we communicate with our clientele by email and postcards that go out to them. We have signs in our windows that are actually television screens that become, that are, you know, digitized. The whole attraction there instead of having just a sign that stays static. It's all imagery of the brands that we sell. So we do that. My wife is a member with a organization of independent stores that is pretty phenomenal about it. Boutique Hub is an organization that's really aimed far more at women than at men, but we have a women's store. So the boutiques that belong to that are very... It's pretty extensive and they have all kinds of tips of ways to do that. So they're very technological and they give all kinds of advice on how to do, how to be an effective marketer on Facebook and Google, TikTok and wherever. So my wife is on there, she does all of it for both stores. So I'm very grateful for her because while I understand it and I can do it, I am pulled very much in too many directions to be able to be serious about it.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Yeah, and I think you have to enjoy it, I think, to be really good at it, and that's not... I wouldn't mind it.
Peter Rose:
I wouldn't mind doing those things, but I don't have that much time or really, more importantly, mental space. I don't have this unlimited capacity to shift from one thing to the next, to the next, to the next, and feel like I'm doing any of them any good. I really do. It's not dissimilar from going through a show and buying everything. You can't do it. You can try and you'll fail at all of them. You'll be exhausted. Yeah. We have a POS system that keeps track of all of our clientele, everything they've bought.
Terresa Zimmerman:
So it includes CRM, customer, you know, management system.
Peter Rose:
All of it. All of that. And we use it. We use it. That's very, very critically important. That's what we use. I don't really know much more to say about that.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Well, that's all right. What about staff? So you said earlier, you know, staff used to be, you know, not an issue. How are you attracting and retaining staff these days?
Peter Rose:
It's one of the biggest challenges I have. Yeah, I hear that. I'm fortunate to have my son-in-law, Evan, upstairs on that selling floor there because, you know, this is not that big of a store and for much of the time he can be the only one there with me to help. But we just hired another person now who I think is going to work out just fine. I think she's going to be good. I think she's going to be good on the sales floor. And I have a guy here that works with me. He happens to be here today. He's here whenever he's needed. So he fills in for the times when one of us can't be here or when I'm not here and there's only him, there's Evan up there. So you have a second, another person to help. So he's been here since the same amount of time I have. He's worked on and off for us since 1972.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Oh, that's awesome.
Peter Rose:
Yeah, so he knows the industry, he knows our store, knows us, loves us, as you know, vice versa. So that's, we're very fortunate in that regard. Women's store, we have a staff that is, it has to go through the same thing. It does have to go through the same process. And I'm trying really hard right now, we're trying to think really, really, diligently, assertively. It's kind of like mania. What we've done here has been more effective than it has been at the women's store. So I work harder and harder to look at things that are aimed at a different clientele and make that transition. We have a couple of bridge brands in this store. One of them is a company called Cool. KUHL, do you know who KUHL is? Yeah, absolutely. Outdoor brand. Their motto is Born in the Mountains. And it's all about, it's cut smaller, it's for trimmer, all the legs have reticulation and all of that.
SPEAKER_02:
Very technical.
Peter Rose:
Yeah. Well, we put that line in for women and it just took off. Just absolutely immediate. So that's, there's a clue. That's one of the, that's what I do. You know, I look for clues. And if, so if that works, all right, what else works that might, maybe not exactly the same, of course, you don't want to hit the same hammer, same nail twice, but you look for those kinds of things. And that requires though, a younger person to work for you. If a young woman walks in, when I joined the company, I was 17 and the old men on the floor were 35. That's who was working for us, so they were 35 and 45 is what I consider to be, those guys are old. I'm 70 now. If a 25-year-old guy walks in here, no matter how much I know what I'm talking about, no matter how, he's not going to identify with what I'm telling him. like he does with Evan. So we need that same sort of thing more in the women's store. You got to be able to interact with people on their level. And an older person just can't do it, no matter how much they try. I think it's just not right to even expect them to. Got to move. Got to move. Keep the circle turning.
Terresa Zimmerman:
That's right. That's right. That tiger by the tail, like your dad did, targeting that younger generation with something.
Peter Rose:
But like I said, people in the 70s and then the 80s wanted to be in this business so bad. Uh, and they wanted, they would work for you. And I think relative to the general economy, we were paying very well. Uh, and, and as the whole shift happened and all of the, so much of those re so many of those retailers, you know, Macy's became an eight, 800 door operation. And our local department store here was called JL Hudson. and they had five of them, but the original one was downtown Detroit. They were phenomenal, and they were all about service. Well, they're gone. They've been swallowed by first Dayton's, then Marshall Field, and then they were Target, became Target, they dissolved it, sold it to Macy's. And Macy's did that across the country. Venerated department stores that were family owned all across the country. all gone, almost all of them gone and all replaced by something that is decidedly less than what was there before. There is no service in those stores. It's not what they're about. So the wages that they pay kind of, I don't think that they overpay by any stretch of the imagination, but because of how much money was taken out of the equation, it changed the whole landscape about how much you can pay. And it's very difficult to fight back against that. So we can't pay as well relative to the general economies we did. I'm not saying that we're underpaying, but I'd like to overpay. I would like to be in a position where I can overpay, you know, to bribe people. You shouldn't, you shouldn't be out there trying to go toe to toe with being in those small stores. You don't want that.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Well, I mean, I think what I think also when all of those stores disappear, the, the talent pool that was sort of bubbling up to go there went away with it. Right. Cause I mean, you had people interested in the retail that you could have drawn from.
Peter Rose:
Yeah, I haven't really nailed that one down in my head. There's something more going on besides that. Retail is considered to be, people use it disparagingly.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Yeah, I mean, all the stuff I'm reading says that the younger generation is getting back into, you know, buying from stores.
Peter Rose:
We're feeling it. We are seeing it.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Yeah.
Peter Rose:
It's still a small percentage, but it's, man, does it feel good when somebody comes in and says, and they rave about you online.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Yeah.
Peter Rose:
It's phenomenal to have somebody, and the truth is they walk in, they had no idea there is such a store. Really? You can come in here and you're going to be my guy for this whole, you know, however long it takes? Yeah. That's what we do.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Yeah. Yeah. And what are you charging me for that? I'm like, oh, you're just, you know, you're buying clothing. I'm helping you with it.
Peter Rose:
Yeah.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Wow.
Peter Rose:
No, it's basically that, that really is what we're trying to do. We're trying to make sure that people understand that this is a, when we say full service, that's what it means. You get as much help as you want. If you want our help, if you want us to steer you and say, yeah, I know you like that, but it's too tight, it's too tight. Go up a size, you won't rip it out. It'll last longer for you, or whatever. So yeah, that's, which goes right back to the whole idea of why would you buy from somebody who doesn't do that for you? It's very, very important. So we keep trying to tell that story.
Terresa Zimmerman:
I mean, that's the part I love is the people part. So what's your biggest joy in what you do?
Peter Rose:
That.
Terresa Zimmerman:
That.
Peter Rose:
It's well, when I bring in product and it immediately sells, it is gratifying because, yeah, I'm giving people what they want. Wow. I don't want to ever have to try to tell people, you know, to have something that they don't want. If you don't, you know, your business isn't going to exactly flourish if that's the case. So it's a big honk for me to to be able to to read those tea leaves properly, properly enough so that you the product that's in demand. Like I say, the whole, the satisfaction of being able to share that. I come back and I'm excited about a brand, you know, and I feel like, how do you transfer that? How do you transfer that energy? Because, you know, you see it, you know what I'm talking about, the way people make the world of. If you've ever seen a Tommy Bahama booth, for instance, at the trade shows, they used to have a two-story one at Magic. Two-story booth.
Terresa Zimmerman:
It's like you're in Bermuda at a bar.
Peter Rose:
Yeah, exactly right. And it tells the story. You fall into that and you understand what they're selling. Cool has that ability to do that too. Pictures of the mountains in the background and there's, you know, hiking boots and everything. You understand exactly what they're trying to do. But they're all about and it's fun. I mean, it helps customers to understand that. So we have to, we have to work hard at that too, to create little spaces within our store in the limited space that we have to, to do more than just put it on a rack and say, here you go. Yeah. You have to be a little more, you have to glorify. I try really hard to glorify, uh, what the brands are. I carry them for this reason. Here, touch this, feel this.
SPEAKER_02:
Yeah.
Peter Rose:
Your product in particular is fun to do that with. Yeah. It is. It's fun. It's a fun thing. I like all the double, uh, the double, uh, all the, all the aspects of it. Yeah.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Yeah, I know we're running out of time here. I do have a couple of questions I want to make sure that we cover off. One of them is, if you look into the future, and you can pick your timeline, one year, three year, five year, ten year, what's the biggest challenge you see coming down the pike and how are you preparing for that?
Peter Rose:
One of the things that is concerning me the most right now is the threat of tariffs. That's an immediate concern. That's something that if that is actually more than anything, more than just bluster and just some sort of a bargaining chip, which it very well could be. But if it's true, if it's real. For instance, all of my suits come from either Canada, which is one of the target countries, or China. I can't just go out and replace them. You can't buy stuff that's made here in America anymore. It's gone. So what do I do? That's a major hurdle. And there's really, honestly, the sad thing about that is there really is nothing I can do about that. If a 30% tax gets slapped onto something, that goes right to the consumer. And that's a sobering, that's a real, I don't need to be paranoid about it any more than I have to be. But when you have, there's this anvil over your head, it may or may not fall. It changes your mindset. It does make you a little more nervous. But I'm hoping that that's not the kind of thing that I have to worry about. I'm hoping that's a thing that we will get past and soon. The longer term stuff is exactly what we've been talking about. The trend towards everything becoming decentralized to the point where there's people right now, as a matter of fact, expect you to be able to give them any absolutely every single niche that they asked for. You know, I'm a size 56 waist with a 22 inch inseam. Do you have anything like that? Well, when you have the internet, there are, any of those questions can be answered. So you're sitting at your desk and you can do that and you can find those specific niches, right? That's the good thing about that. But it's also, it's impossible for a retailer like us to do. So as more people become inured to the fact of, to the idea that Just go online, you'll find it there. Whether or not I think it's the right way to go or not, I'm not in everyone's living room saying, no, no, no, don't do that, don't do that. Shop local. They will listen if you keep talking, but they are not necessarily going to follow your advice. Because they can't experience it. All they have to do is experience it, and then they understand it. They understand it more. So yeah, I think that the trend towards, I'm not even worried about national chains anymore. They all seem to be struggling. They all seem to be having the same difficulty as internet keeps growing and internet sales do continue to gather more and more of the market, that's pressure on all of them. And those organizations, the thing that propelled them to the top, I'm talking about stock market driven companies, anything that they were driven to the top, to the top of mind awareness by that money, but that money demands money in return. And if they are not giving them a return on their investment, that stock's not going to sell. That stock's going to come down and the company will crash, which is exactly what we're seeing here. Niche after niche is failing at that level, and that is being replaced, not by independence as much as it should. That would be great. The challenges are that. The questions are, I guess what I can do to combat it is just be what we are and just continue to sound the horn and just say, this is better. Our business has gone up dramatically in the last five years. So yeah, I hear that from many independent stores and I'm really grateful for that. And after the bubble of COVID, people coming back and wanting to go out and just get out and go out and buy, go do something. Well, we hung on to that. And I think they have too, the other businesses in our midst, the people who also go to the shows. all these Indies from all over the place seem to have found a whole new level of energy, which is very, very reassuring. I want to see that maximized. I want to see that continue to grow.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Yeah, and I do think, you know, everything I'm seeing research-wise, that younger generation's leading a little bit of that charge, you know, because the buying local speaks to their sort of social responsibility, environmental sense of, you know, values and, you know, there's a lot to that. So I hope that continues to be a trend for the younger generation.
Peter Rose:
Me too. Me too. And I'm seeing, like you said, I'm seeing evidence of that.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Love it. All right, my last question. Why does Main Street matter?
Peter Rose:
If you have a, let's say you have a beach ball, and that beach ball represents your community, and inside that community are all the people that live there, and there's business being done in that beach ball. that ball is pretty bouncy. It's very vibrant. All the atoms are bouncing around in there and that ball is very full of energy and bouncy. Well, when malls open up two miles away, you open up the the spigot on that thing, a little bit of air goes out, you close it back up again, it doesn't bounce as high, and you let a little bit more air out, and a little bit more air out, and all of a sudden, so much of the business that was being done in that town, which killed many towns across the nation, now the ball doesn't bounce at all. And the home values in that place, therefore, are nowhere near as good as they used to be. And that's all interdependent. People don't really, I know that people don't intend to not connect the dots, but it's been a passion of mine to try to educate them on that without lecturing them, but illustrating what that means. An example that I just gave you like that is a pretty good analogy of how much zing there is in a community. So when you come into a town like mine, which is, Wyandotte in post-World War II was just a boom town. There were three movie theaters. There were six furniture stores, three men's stores. This was the place to come. And therefore, people kept coming into Wyandotte. They wanted to buy houses in this town. There's a big demand to build this town up. And Wyandotte peaked at about 50,000 people. And at this point, we're at about 25 back from that. They peaked a long time ago, way, way long ago in the 50s. And we have a resurgence of energy here. Thank you. Thanks to the bars and restaurants who have put in some serious money into it to make the downtown look more attractive and everything. And that's one of the things that's helping us. That's great. The place looks more alive. It feels more energetic. You know, when people come out of bars and restaurants, especially restaurants.
SPEAKER_02:
Yeah.
Peter Rose:
You know, oh, I didn't know they had a store like that over there. Let's go check that out. That's how it works. So why does Mainstreet matter? You know, you can go to a national chain, but that's taking money. The money that's in, if you go to the national chain of any type, if you go to a Red Robin, the or a olive garden. The money, the profitability from each purchase you make leaves the state. It leaves the region, the city, the region, the state. And it goes to wherever that headquarters is. It goes to shareholders. It does not go, it is not spent in the local community. Three and a half times more money stays local when you buy local. So That's a very difficult thing for people to get their arms around. It's hard for them to quite understand, but that's really true. All of the graphic design work that's done is not done here, it's done elsewhere. So there's no demand for graphic artists, right? If you were to shut things down and say, okay, on this particular week, all of the business that's ever done, it's done on any retail, is all going to be done in your city. All of the money, everyone that lives here, everything they buy is gonna be done in our city. The effect of that on the retailers here would be too much to even handle. It would be electric, right? But worsely, if all of the business, if all of the money was not spent here, we'd all dry up and go away. Which do you think is the better solution? What makes you feel like your town is the place to live? Downtowns like this serve as that social hub that you were referring to, like having people and having kids involved and having speakers come in and talk. It's a hub. It's one of the things that we have really truly lost. So fighting back against the trend that does that, is really, really important, and that requires some energy. It requires a lot of energy. My father died two years ago, and when that happened, that's when my hats, all of a sudden everything had to change, and I started being unable to dedicate myself to the things that I'm talking about now. I spent a great deal of time focusing on building organizations, a local organization. We call it Love, Why, and Dot. And we had a giant, my father gave it to us, an eight-foot diameter sign with our logo. It's on the side of our building at Willowtree. It's amazing. It just lights up. It says, Love Wyandotte. And everyone loves it.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Everyone loves it. Is that an organization? Can we put that in our notes? Is there a website?
Peter Rose:
We can put it in the notes. We really are not an organization anymore. We are a concept now. So we have a Facebook presence that is both for this town and for other, we have another one called Love Local, which is Downriver. Downriver, which is the 16 community south of Detroit. And we're constantly saying nice things about stores that are independent. We go to a restaurant, we take pictures of it, we tell a little story about it and post it. say, check this place out. It feels really fun to say nice things about other stores. And it can even be competitors, and we do that. We're happy to say nice things about stores that are competition for our own Willow Tree store here.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Well, yeah, because at the end of the day, we're all in this together as independents, right?
Peter Rose:
That's correct. So it matters a great deal for all those reasons and more. It's vital. I spent seven years writing articles that appeared every single month in a local publication company. So it reaches all the people in my town and four other towns surrounding me. So all of those people got to read that where I tried to educate people. 84 straight months of writing essentially about the same general issue. I finally gave it a break. I can't do it right now. But even if I could, sometimes it's good to walk away from it a little bit and let people... Sure, yeah, but you know what?
Terresa Zimmerman:
Repetition is a good thing. So maybe you just need to recycle the old articles and start pushing them back out there. You can call it a throwback, you know?
Peter Rose:
Could easily do that.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Yeah.
Peter Rose:
Could easily do that.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Yeah. I mean, I'm happy to, you know, post them on our blog if you want to, you know, share if there's something that you think would be interesting for beyond your region. So, because the concepts that everybody faces are so similar.
Peter Rose:
I think they are. I think they're exact. I mean, every town, we're not that unique. You know, there's little towns like this everywhere. There's towns that have a downtown center and then towns that don't, but stores operate in those too. So the whole, the ideas still remain the same. The idea of keeping things local.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Send those articles if you want me to post them. I'd be very happy to do it. We can share those far and wide.
Peter Rose:
I'll send you a couple and tell me what you think.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Cool. Awesome. Awesome. Thank you so much, Peter. I appreciate you doing this. I know it's hard to get time out of busy schedules, but I'm glad you feel like independent retail is as important as I do and Main Street matters. So let's keep going.
Peter Rose:
I'm glad you're doing this. I'm impressed that you do this. It really makes me feel good. It's really rewarding when I see other people just as freaked out about what's happening. And what can I do? You're saying, what can I do to be a voice against all of that? That's really, really cool. So I appreciate it. Hats off to you, Teresa. Thank you.
Terresa Zimmerman:
Thank you. All right. Well, I hope to see you soon in person at some point, Peter. You guys have a great day and a great week. And Happy New Year again.
Peter Rose:
Same to you.
Terresa Zimmerman:
All right, thanks. Thank you for tuning in to Main Street Matters. I hope you found today's episode insightful and inspiring. I'd love it if you would share Main Street Matters with fellow retail owners or anyone else who loves Main Street. And please subscribe so you know when the next episode drops.
