Pierson has done nothing fundamentally wrong from a business standpoint, Sibayan said. But how dot-coms are viewed in the industry, his product is not sexy for selling over the Internet, he said. Pierson s business will succeed, though, Sibayan believes, because he has his 19 physical stores, the brick and mortar end of the business, to fall back on. Sibayan said the staff cuts by Addi are part of a reorganization of the online mission to be ready for the day the economic downturn ends. When you get into a slowdown, luxury items are the first thing to be affected, Sibayan said.
Art is considered a luxury item.
People are scaling back. But things will turn around. We re just going through a typical downturn, and I believe we ll come out of this misery sooner, we hope, than later. From an economist s standpoint, what s happening in Reno is no different than elsewhere as the nation teeters toward what some believe could be a mild recession. Tom Cargill, a University of Nevada, Reno economics professor, said Internet businesses have been hit especially hard.