The recent closing of InkStop in Sanatoga Village Center ...
POTTSTOWN PA – Holiday shopping online yesterday, Cyber Monday (Nov. 30, 2009), apparently exceeded economists’ expectations, and more shoppers turned out this year for Friday’s (Nov. 27) pre-Christmas retail sales rush than last, but that good fortune wasn’t experienced by at least two stores in Sanatoga village.
Hollywood Video and InkStop, both located in the portion of Sanatoga Village Center that fronts East High Street across from Sunnyside Avenue, were dark on Black Friday. They are among the latest local business victims of the national recession. Both closed within days of each other at the start of October (2009), and so far there is no indication the store fronts they vacated have been filled.
... and the neighboring Hollywood Video store there left large vacancies in the portion of the shopping plaza that fronts East High Street.
InkStop Inc. filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy Nov. 10 (2009), telling the bankruptcy court that it owed too much money – $48.3 million to more than a thousand creditors – to reopen. It plans instead to sell its assets and close for good.
A specialty retailer of supplies for small businesses and home offices, InkStop surprised its 550 employees Oct. 1 with the announcement that it was laying them off immediately and closing all 152 stores nationwide. The Ohio-based company failed to issue final paychecks and left staffers responsible for health care costs incurred after September.
Hollywood Video, and its accompanying Game Crazy video game store, closed its Sanatoga doors Sept. 29 (2009), only two days before InkStop. Hollywood Video is owned by Movie Gallery Inc., the country’s second largest video rental franchise, which recently emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection it sought in 2007. The local closing was part of its corporate re-organization; the nearest Hollywood Video still in business is in Phoenixville PA.
Hollywood Video’s Sanatoga outlet is among 250 Movie Gallery reportedly has closed this fall; another 200 closures may be possible.
Signs currently hang in the windows of both stores, offering phone numbers of those to contact in an emergency. The vacancies are being marketed by a leasing agent.
Sales on Cyber Monday, the name for the Monday following Thanksgiving Day because it traditionally is the strongest day of the year for consumers’ online retail purchases, were reported to be 11 percent higher than that of 2008, according to Bloomberg Financial News Service. But e-commerce still represents only 6 percent of total spending, so the gain offers only a minor boost to the economy.
On Black Friday, the Friday following Thanksgiving so-named because sales that day finally put retailers into the black and make them profitable, the National Retail Federation reports more people went shopping than in recent years past but spent about 8 percent less money.
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These locations never had the traffic volume to maintain these stores. Cumbersome entry and exit doesn’t help.
Let’s hope they’re filled soon.