By Andrea K. Walker , andrea.walker@baltsun.com|October 07, 2008
C-Mart, the local retail institution known for piling its shelves with designer brands on the cheap, is going out of business next week, the victim of a sour economy where even the best deals couldn't bring out enough penny-pinching consumers.
Shoppers once clamored outside the doors of the Harford County retailer for the chance to get a Prada handbag, Gucci sunglasses or Manolo Blahnik pumps. They traveled from New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania to rummage through the store's legendary cluttered shelves and jam-packed aisles hoping to find that couture dress.
But during the past year, facing higher gasoline and food prices along with tighter credit, shoppers stopped coming, the retailer's owners said yesterday. As home sales declined, so did the need for shoppers to buy furniture, which made up more than 50 percent of C-Mart's revenue.
FOR THE RECORD
Harford County retailer C-Mart will close Oct. 18. An article in Monday's newspaper gave an incorrect date.
The Baltimore Sun regrets the error.
Soon, sales at the 33-year-old retailer declined and it was forced to lay off some employees. New owners, who recently came on board with visions of aggressively expanding the retail operation, put on hold a plan to start an e-commerce division of the store. And with no sign of a reprieve in the economy anytime soon, the owners decided shutting down was the only answer.
They plan to close for good Oct. 14.
"Unless you're selling things that people have to have, bread and butter and things like that, it's hard out there right now," said Daniel Shuman, C-Mart's chief executive officer. "If you're selling Calvin Klein jeans and Ralph Lauren sweaters, those are things people are willing to do without when they have less discretionary income."
The closing of C-Mart brings to an end what had become a local institution with a cult-like following of shoppers, including many adults who had shopped at the store as children.
E. Douglas Carton opened C-Mart at an old five-and-dime store in the 1970s, when discount shopping was still a new idea. Carton never had an interest in expanding the business, but when a new generation of his family took over, they had different ideas.
Under the direction of Carton's nephew, Keith Silberg, C-Mart closed its small store in Forest Hill in 2005 and opened in an old K-Mart in Joppatowne. The store began selling furniture. It opened another location in Prince George's County in 2007. That store was closed about a year later.
