The Wilmington morning star. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1909-1990, 1945-07-09

WllmlngtOn's business houses
have reported an unofficial drop
OF anywhere from five per cent to
IL per cent in retail business for
the first six months of 1945 as
compared with the same period of
last year.
One merchant dealing in lower
qualities of clothing disclosed that
lower grades of wearing apparel
were practically impossible to get.
He also added to the list of scarce
articles, bed clothing and other
linens. Prospects of getting addi-
tional merchandise of this type do
not appear to be getting any
brighter, he said, as he had been
advised by sources in New York.
Proprietor Of a woman's cloth
ing shop on Front street reported
that she recently returned from
New York, where she had been on
a buying trip. She painted rather
gloomy word picture of what is
going on in the clothing market.
1t was her conception that buy
ers from bigger stores in larger
cities in the midwest could not
sell an article of clothing because
of this or that, finding one fault
here and another there.
Maybe they had other sources
she said. But in Wilmington we
have to take what we can get,
and consider ourselves lucky. I
had to take that clothing which
other buyers in other sections Of
the country said they couldn't sell.
They were not defects in material
understand, but some were what
you might call defects in pattern
or design
Owner of another women's cloth
ing shop reported his business had
decreased about five or seven per
cent. However, we have not ad-
ded the cheaper qualities of wear
ing apparel with our higher quail
ity merchandise. We always have
tried to maintain higher STAN
dard of merchandise, he said.
However, this merchant didn't
say what he was going to do when
it became impossible to get the
high dollar trade marks. Perhaps
lot of stores will go about their
business with no apologies what,
soever for the lower grades OF
goods which they may be com.
PEELED to sell while others may
be sincerely sorry that they are
unable to maintain the higher
standard of merchandise OF a lew
years ago.
One Wilmington shoe store I'M
able to acquire enough of the bet
ter grades of shoes to supply thelr
customers have been forced tc
add new lines of merchandise to
their depicting stocks. This was
true of a great many ether stores,
survey showed.
A comparison with this is the
drug store OF many years ago,
which soon found out that it could
MT exist without selling other
things besides drugs. Thus, the
, soda fountain, stationary, candy
and cigars that many drug stores
t Of today thrive on-with the pre-
eor;nt;on counter in the back
: aro,1nd of a druggists business.
; This is exactly what is happen
! no to Wilmington shoe stores
5 m MS had to expand their hos
;arv line. and add a few other
srt;c1es to maintain any custom
ers at all. ao ~
! o,1ah second rate shoes to fill
;n With. We always manage to get
- We are given shoes on
an allotment basis, and most OF
~ fine this is cut below our
n,,ota. There are enough cheap
shoes available, one dealer said.
Although the labor problem in
wilmington was described as prac-
+icallv non existant among the
citv's merchants, it appears that
before long they will have nothing
5 to sell.
, Naturally we would be affected
by the closing of Camp Davis"
one merchant said. "But if they
. ever close the shipyard, that's
where we'll suffer-"
It was pointed out that since the