Transcripts

"Voices from Main Street"-Fashioning Business In Troubled Times

SUSIE GHARIB: American cities and towns are hit by the financial slowdown and so are the businesses that line their streets. We're visiting some of them in the continuing series that we call "Voices from Main Street." Jeff Yastine dropped by a high-end men's clothing store in south Florida where customers are tightening their belts, as well as their purse strings.

JEFF YASTINE, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT CORRESPONDENT: Downtown Hollywood, Florida. It's 1200 miles from the canyons of Wall Street, but the nation's economic troubles are just as apparent. Less traffic on the streets, fewer people in the restaurants and fewer customers here at 1919 Hollywood Boulevard. That's the location of the Irving Berlin men's apparel shop, a decades-old landmark business on this particular main street. Ronnie Cohen grew up in these aisles and now co-manages this family-owned shop with her father.

RONNI COHEN, VICE PRESIDENT, IRVING BERLIN FOR MEN: It's a challenge, I must say that I've been in the store 35 years and I have never seen the drop in revenue that we have right now. There's, it's hard put to get people to come in the door.

YASTINE: It hasn't always been hard. Cohen's father Lou bought the store in 1974 from this man and yes his name really was Irving Berlin, the habadasher. He founded the store in 1955. Since then it's changed with the times. You'll find high end Italian clothing and accessories and the store has weathered other economic downturns, but Cohen says this one is different.

COHEN: I think it feels worse, unfortunately. I think people are just a little more hesitant, they are a little more nervous, I don't think people have seen the destruction of their 401k's and just their perception of the lull I think right now is a big, you know, part of their worries to spend money.

YASTINE: So Cohen, like every other small business these days, has been adjusting to the leaner economic times. It's meant carrying less inventory and also adjusting the product mix here in the store to carry fewer suits and more shirts with a lower price point. And she's learned something else, selling through the Internet. She's also focused on keeping existing customers coming back, e-mailing them photos of new inventory, making alterations from measurements on file, then personally delivering the merchandise. Cohen says Irving Berlin has always been about treating customers as family.

COHEN: I'm concerned. Would I say I'm pessimistic, no. We've all been here, done this before, just have to try to, you know, trim whatever costs you can, and, you know, -- oh, I'm sorry. How are you? Good to see you.

YASTINE: The philosophy she believes will keep her store in business long after this economic downturn is history. Jeff Yastine, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT, Hollywood, Florida.