Family businesses inside malls

Maheswaran (Mike) Arumugam chose Whitby Mall Shopping Centre for his retail business because it was close to home.

He and his wife could spell each other off when they needed to run one of their four daughters to school or extracurriculars, and Mr. Pro Prints, which offers embroidery and T-shirt printing, banners and small signs, prospered.

He kept the store even after the family moved away from the neighbourhood, because the rent was low and his customer base was established.

“It suits us for the situation,” said Arumugam, who is on his third location in the mall.

He pays about $1,500 in rent and $200 in hydro, for a total monthly cost of $1,700 for a space about the size of a newsstand. He does the sewing work himself, at machines at the back of the small space.

He says the Pickering Town Centre asked him to open a store there, but the rents were too high for his business model and he is content at Whitby Mall.

Smaller malls may be struggling, but they also offer opportunities to independent business owners that they might not otherwise have.

Whitby Mall has also been good to the owners of Graziella Fine Jewellery.

Deeb Basmaji and his brother launched their business in the mall with a 350-square-foot store in 1998 at a time when they needed something inexpensive, and now have three locations, including one at Five Points Mall in Oshawa, where they are having a closing-out sale.

Basmaji said that while indoor stores at Whitby Mall may suffer from a lack of traffic, Graziella and other stores that have exterior exposure — doorways fronting on the parking lot in addition to mall entrances — are in a better position.

It also helps to have a passport office in the mall.

“The Whitby Mall did give us an opportunity to start our business, to start our lives, which would have been very difficult to get anywhere else, because it offered us value and community interaction and community exposure,” Basmaji said.

“People were able to come visit us and see us, and we were able to create relationships with people that were local. The best form of advertising for jewellers is word-ofmouth.”