WOW!!!!   What a week.

All I can say is wow!  Mother's Day weekend gave me hope, hope that things were gonna pick up, that things were going to get better..... I had two great days, people were spending some money, they seemed happy and content............and Boom, just like that Monday came, sales came to a screeching halt, the fall out from the Mother's Day aftermath.

So for the next three days I have sat and wondered, what can I do differently, why is it getting so hard to pull this all together.  Why can't I make people spend their money, is it because I don't have nice things?  Is it because I can't figure out what they want or is it because they don't have the extra money to spend.

I get wonderful comments on the shop on a daily basis, but let's face it kids, I cannot keep doing this if people don't spend some money.   I cannot keep changing for the seasons and making my place scream of whatever season it is if all your gonna do is come in, look around, get your mental fix and leave.

I can't beg for sales, or walk out into the road and force them into the store with their wallet open.   I think that it is important to let your customers shop and not badger them, (another pet peeve of mine).  I know money is tight everywhere and for most of the people that I am friends with.  We all are struggling and I don't know a Main Street store anywhere State wide that isn't feeling the hurt of the economy.     

I am so very sure that it isn't so much that I am doing something wrong as it is that , life is hard for everyone, that money doesn't grow on trees and that people are more skeptical about their purchases then they ever have been.  

But then you walk into a big box store and you see the cart full of things, full of lamps, rugs, bedding, maybe a small furniture piece......and you wonder why target is so much better than you...............it isn't that they are, it is that their prices are cheaper, their furniture is pressboard and they didn't have to drive out of their way, they have settled...  Bottom line, we live in a world where instead of buying something nice, some kind of quality, they are content to buy something cheaper that they can afford right now.... because they know that when it breaks or when it fades or when it doesn't suit them anymore, they will just throw it away and buy a new one.  

We have become a throw away society, so maybe all this effort in trying to buy USA made things and getting furniture makers that will compete with hand made solid wood products is all for nothing.  For changing how we (shop owners) look at things is one thing, changing how you shop or look at things is a completely different story......sigh!

As Always, a fretting store owner that can only do so much.