By: Angelica Proano
Fifth Ave. known as the high-end fashion shopping district of Manhattan, is one most visited Avenues of this city. In the upper district of Fifth Ave., there are stores such as Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Prada, Tiffany & Co, BCBG, Michael Kors and others many like these, but as for the Flatiron district of Fifth Ave., the businesses still remain high-end mixed with your regular H&M retail store. The Flatiron district is very famous for the flatiron building because of its unusual architect. Boutiques of the high-end business are located in this district as well as superstore business such as Home Depot. Many tourists visit this district a lot as well as for locals, these customers help maintain many of the businesses in the Flatiron district.
I did my research on the block before Madison Park and the Flatiron building, 22 street. Walking through 22 and 23 street, you can see many shoppers, many people with shopping bags rushing by to get from store to store. Just by this image one can assume that this shopping district is very vibrant and seems to be doing very well especially in this spiral economy that we live in. After talking to the managers of the stores I interviewed, all of them have said the same: Traffic is low, but they are maintaining, and through the holiday season it gets even better.
The first store I went into was a skin care/beauty type of business, called L’Occitane. Walking in, there are many shoppers; the store is practically filled especially with the complimentary samples. Ivica Jeras, the manager says that even though the traffic is low, they are still maintaining and able to attract new customers with their complimentary samples and great customer service. Talking to the manager alone made me feel so welcome to be in the store and made me want to buy from them. The next store I approached was BCBG Maxazria, this is the second boutique that they have on Fifth Ave., and it is smaller compared to the first one. I was unable to talk to any of the employees and being able to talk to the manager was not even a question. By the looks of it, the store was not flooded with customers; there were at most four customers during my time in the store. BCBG is a high-end store and by having a smaller boutique they are still able to profit even with low customer traffic.
Solstice sunglasses boutique and Aerosoles shoes were the next stores I visited on this 22nd Street block. For both stores the customer traffic was very low. The managers seem to agree as well with the traffic being down but they both claim that they have their days and that it mostly depends on the weather. Despite the holiday season, these businesses have not seen much improvement on their profits and customer traffic. The last retail business I attempted to interview was a women’s clothing store, Eileen Fisher. The manager was in a rush and there were many customers in the store. Even though I was unable to do an interview with the manager one of the employees mentioned that the customer traffic has been good especially for the past months with the sales they have going. Without much luck on getting an interview by the manager of the Chase bank location, I did learn that previous to it being Chase, it was the Bank of New York, which Chase bank had bought out during the 2008 economy crisis.
Whether it’s the weather or the holiday season there are different reasons on why the customer traffic can decline or incline. Just by the looks of it, in my opinion I assumed that this district was doing great in customer traffic, but I only did a census of one block with 6 different retail stores. Traffic may be low, but they are still located on one of the most expensive avenues, the infamous Fifth Avenue.
