Legacy stores must reinvent themselves as priorities shift
August was a cruel month for some of the Bay Area’s oldest retailers.
The 157-year-old luxury department store Gump’s and Orchard Supply Hardware, founded during the Great Depression in San Jose, both said they will close by the end of the year.
The looming shutdowns highlight continued upheaval in the retail industry in the age of Amazon. They also reflect the Bay Area’s intense cost pressures: high retail rents and housing costs that make it harder to find real estate and workers alike, business permits that can take years for approval, and a rising minimum wage.
Mike Buhler, president of San Francisco Heritage, said a variety of factors has prompted long-standing businesses to move or close, including new landlords who want to jack up rents and shifting customer tastes.
“Often the only retailers that can afford spaces in the iconic hubs of San Francisco are chains,” Buhler said.
Despite a spate of closures, many older retail businesses are seeing sales boom. The key has been deepening relationships with shoppers
and reinventing product lines, store owners say. Wilkes Bashford: For 52 years, Wilkes Bashford has been selling high-end clothing to San Franciscans near Union Square. It also has a store at Stanford Shopping Center in Palo Alto. Sales are up 7 percent this year and have doubled since 2009, when the company was sold out of bankruptcy to Mitchell Stores.
“We believe our secret sauce is our high level of personalization and the relationships,” said Bob Mitchell, Co-CEO of Mitchell.
Members of Wilkes Bashford’s 85-person staff have known some customers for decades, and they have expertise that isn’t available at online shops, Mitchell said. There are 20 tailors between the two stores, offering custom alterations.
The company has shifted its product lines to appeal to younger buyers who want more casual clothing.
“Luxury can still be casual — whether it’s a great pair of denim or great knitwear,” Mitchell said. “For guys, we’re selling a lot more sports coats than suits.”
Mitchell said Wilkes Bashford is now looking to expand in Palo Alto.
“We’re not just alive; we’re actually thriving and growing,” he said.
Good Vibrations: “We’re doing OK, but it is hard to do business in San Francisco right now,” said Carol Queen, staff sexologist at sex-toy shop Good Vibrations, founded in 1977.
High housing costs don’t just make it harder to find employees, said Queen, who has been working at the company since 1990.
“The longtime customer base has aged out of the Bay Area, retired out of the Bay Area, gotten priced out in the Bay Area,” she said. “We have new friends to meet in the tech crowd that have come to live here, but of course we need to reach out.”
Good Vibrations holds regular events in its seven Bay Area stores and two in the Boston area, including a “Sip and Shop” day with free wine and a 10 percent discount for an hour. It offers free massage lessons and holds panels about sexuality.
The company has modernized its products with features such as Wi-Fi and now stocks lingerie to appeal to younger shoppers.
“When someone walks in the door from the tech world, we have a way to interface with them in the world they live in,” Queen said.
Good Vibrations ran into financial trouble a decade ago, but it stabilized after it was sold to GVA-TWN, an adultproducts company in Cleveland. The parent company has helped provide capital for the store to grow.
Good Vibrations also received $10,826 in grants from San Francisco’s Legacy Business Historic Preservation Fund to pay for facade and interior improvements. City voters established the fund, the first of its kind in the nation, when they passed Measure J in 2015. To be eligible, businesses must have operated in the city for more than 20 years, be in danger of displacement, and meet other criteria.
Now, Queen said, “we are in expansion mode.”
In 2016, Good Vibrations bought a Santa Cruz adult store called Camouflage and acquired the adult chain store Babeland. It plans to keep those brands distinct. Britex Fabrics: Britex Fabrics, founded in 1952, moved last year from its longtime location to 117 Post St., next to Gump’s.
It now holds more events — a Dog Day on Sept. 14 will celebrate the store pug, Kirby — and sewing classes. To attract younger customers, the store has partnered with Future Valley Education of San Mateo’s summer school program, bringing in students to buy fabrics and ribbons.
“We’re trying to be inventive and encourage people to make the trek down here,” said Sharman Spector, owner of Britex, whose parents started the company.
The company has embraced social media and using photos to promote its extensive lines of fabrics. It sells on the web, but online sales are only about 5 percent of the total.
“We’re certainly not resting on our laurels,” said Dina Fayer, Britex store manager. “We’re trying new things.”
Housing prices have hurt. The vast majority of Britex’s more than 30 employees live in the East Bay rather than San Francisco.
Britex and other shops are also grappling with construction around Union Square for the Central Subway, which has lasted almost a decade. Work outside the old Britex location was constantly throwing up dust in the air, Spector said.
“It’s disgusting. It doesn’t seem to be resolved,” she said. “This small, special gem of a city deserves better than the downtown we have.”
Though registered as a legacy business with the city, Britex has not sought grants, she said.
Spector hopes the city prioritizes finishing the Central Subway — construction is scheduled to finish by the end of 2019 — and works to revitalize Union Square by making the streets cleaner and more accessible.
“As a legacy business, I’m very proud to be here. I just really feel the city has to buy in,” she said.