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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowTo compete with e-commerce giant Amazon, independent retailers rely on something people can’t find online: in-person customer service.
But even face-to-face interaction doesn’t guarantee a sale.
Rusted Moon Outfitters co-owner Shiron Miller said she’s witnessed brazen behavior in her Broad Ripple store that specializes in outdoor gear.
“You will have the customer who walks in, and we will spend time fitting them,” Miller said. “And then they say, ‘Oh, I can find this on Amazon, order it and get it cheaper.’”
Still, Rusted Moon is the type of place where regular customers and staff members know one another—and those relationships keep customers coming back.
“We’re very fortunate,” Miller said. “We have a very loyal customer base, and a lot of those customers are families. Mom will come in and say, ‘OK, tell me what the kids were looking for,’ or, ‘My husband, John, was in the store. What did he have his eye on?’”
That personal touch is especially meaningful at the holidays when customers are looking to find just the right gift—something more authentic than the latest social media craze.
You can find that authenticity at Castleton menswear store Al’s Modern Clothing & Shoes, where owner Al Wright will even help you coordinate with your significant other for a special evening out.
“People will come in here on the day and say, ‘I’m going on a date, and my girl is wearing this color. Hook me up. I want to look nice,’” Wright said. “That customer will come back. They know they don’t have to worry about, ‘What do I have to do?’ We’ll take care of that for them.”
But competing with Amazon and other online retailers is tough, especially when same-day shipping makes online buying incredibly fast, and artificial intelligence can even approximate personalization.
“Everybody’s having to deal with that,” said Wright, whose sales are down from last year. “It’s enough that you can feel it.”
More than three-quarters of Americans shop online. And just less than 1 in 5 purchases are now made from a retailer on the web, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That share has been growing—albeit more slowly than before and during the pandemic.
According to 2023 research published by data platform Statista, Amazon accounted for 38% of the U.S. e-commerce market, followed by Walmart (6%), Apple (4%), eBay (3%) and Target (2%). That dominant performance is fueled by Amazon Prime members, which Statista predicted would number 180 million in the United States this year.
But the argument can be made that Amazon isn’t a corporate monolith. According to the retailer, more than 60% of its sales are made by third-party sellers. And more than half of those third-party sellers are small to medium-size businesses.
Amy Minick Peterson, who owns and operates Decorate, a 9-year-old gift shop in the Mass Ave Cultural District, said she considered becoming one of those third-party Amazon sellers. But she said the costs associated with shipping factored into her decision not to go there.
“It’s a commitment,” she said. “The tough part is that you have to structure the business in such a way that you can cover your freight, which has become increasingly expensive. If it’s a custom candle, which we do a lot of, people are willing to pay and ship it. But if it’s a Christmas candle that we carry and other stores carry, people are going to look for the least expensive and for free shipping.”
Even without Amazon, online shopping accounts for about 20% of Decorate’s sales. And Peterson recently spruced up decorateindy.com to encourage online sales.
“I shop at Amazon, too, when I need to,” she said. “But most of our customers tell us they want to see it, touch it and know the quality of it.”
With holiday shopping in full swing, IBJ checked in with a handful of locally owned retailers—Decorate, Rusted Moon Outfitters, Addendum Gallery and Al’s Modern Clothing & Shoes—to see how they’re competing with online retailers and how sales are going this year.
At Carmel’s Addendum Gallery, which bills itself as “Indiana’s premier luxury lifestyle shop,” sales of jewelry and candles have been consistent this year, with strong results during the past month.
“Things have really taken off, and that might be because it’s a shorter holiday season this year,” said owner Shane Hartke, noting that Thanksgiving was celebrated on Nov. 28 this year, as opposed to Nov. 23 in 2023. “I think people are shopping early. Last year, people waited and waited.”
Here’s what else we learned:
Addendum Gallery
Hartke opened Addendum Gallery in 2002, after the 9/11 terrorist attacks upended his career in hotel management.
But he brought part of New York’s W Hotel chain with him to Carmel. Hartke outfitted suites at the W with items by home decor designer Michael Aram, and Aram’s work has been available to Addendum customers for 22 years.
Addendum also carries Cire Trudon, known as the world’s oldest candlemaker, and jumbo multi-wick candles by Baobab. And customers can find Creed Fragrances and Bond No. 9, two scents previously available at the bygone Saks Fifth Avenue at the Fashion Mall at Keystone.
“For a lot of the brands, we’re the only place in Indiana that has it,” said Hartke, who grew up in Lafayette.
Addendum occupies two storefronts at Carmel City Center along South Rangeline Road. One is largely devoted to selling MacKenzie-Childs ceramics and home decor.
“This is like an adult Sesame Street,” Hartke said of Carmel City Center. “[Hotel Carmichael] brings in a ton of people from out of town. Couple that with performances at the Palladium and the Christkindlmarkt, that’s a lot of people.”
Addendum is transitioning from one online retail platform to another, and Hartke said customers should be able to shop at addendumgallery.com in 2025.
“There are people who live in Montana who don’t have anywhere to buy Baobab candles,” he said. “Hopefully, we’ll capture some of that business, as well.”
Decorate
Beyond candles, Decorate sells home decor gifts, lamps, rugs and pillows in seasonal cycles at 708 Massachusetts Ave. Peterson said Jellycat Soft Toys, which are stuffed animals collected in the tradition of Beanie Babies, have become a hit among Decorate shoppers.
“There was a baby store down the street that sold a bit of Jellycat,” Peterson said. “They closed, and because of my relationship with one of the reps for the company, I said, ‘Hey, don’t sell that to anybody else.’ It has become one of our top sellers.”
Decorate enjoyed one of its all-time best weekends for sales when Taylor Swift performed Nov. 1-3 at Lucas Oil Stadium, Peterson said.
“There were a lot of out-of-towners,” she said. “As we all know, people were coming from all over. It was a huge boost to us, because people were seeing things they maybe had not seen before.”
Miller, who owns Rusted Moon with her husband, Henry Miller, said people became more appreciative of the outdoors during the pandemic.
“If someone grew up on video games and never took a walk through the woods, that was a chance for, ‘Oh, this is kind of neat,’” she said. “There’s a peacefulness about it. There’s a health benefit to it.”
Business boomed across Rusted Moon’s categories of paddling, backpacking and skiing, Miller said. Today, the shop that showcases about 9,000 items in a 4,000-square-foot building at 6410 Cornell Ave. is back to sales figures similar to those of pre-pandemic 2019.
The Millers opened Rusted Moon in 2002. After working at “big box” stores that sold outdoor gear, they were eager to try something different.
“We didn’t want people who weren’t involved on a day-to-day basis with our customer making the decisions about our customer,” Shiron Miller said. “It’s hard to sit in a cubicle in some office, where you are totally detached from who your customer is and what their needs are and what they’re wanting.”
The store sells some of its items online at rustedmoonindy.com, but Miller said she’s hesitant to dive into the deep end of e-commerce.
“I don’t want to do all of our products until we’re ready, because one mistake can destroy everything you’ve built in 20-plus years,” she said. “I’m not going to take that risk. Everything we do in the store, we do right.”
Al’s Modern Clothing & Shoes
Wright is in the third phase of a career selling menswear in Indianapolis. The native of Peoria, Illinois, owned Players Modern Clothing, 5917 E. 38th St., from 1995 until the store closed in 2011. He then worked at Bachrach at the Fashion Mall until that chain closed in 2018.
Al’s Modern Clothing & Shoes opened later that year at 6036 E. 82nd St., where display racks and a service counter from Bachrach found new life.
The inventory at Al’s Modern ranges from alligator leather shoes and colorful Coogi sweaters to wool suits and fedora hats.
“The thing that helps me is that my store is so different, and it’s a niche,” Wright said. “If a person is looking for a burgundy shoe, an average store won’t have it.”
Looking back to his Players Modern Clothing days, Wright said Black customers made up 95% of the clientele. At the Castleton shop, Black customers make up 80% of the clientele, he said.
“I have a men’s clothing store that caters to everybody’s needs,” said Wright, who played basketball at Southern Illinois University in the 1980s. “I don’t care if you’re 20; I don’t care if you’re 70. I’m going to have something for you. I don’t care if you’re Black; I don’t care if you’re white. I’m going to have something for you.”
Wright sells his products at alsmodernclothing.com, but he said a more robust online presence would be helpful.
Customers find staff experience and expertise at the shop, where Wright’s 40-year-old son and 78-year-old father help customers find their swagger. “That’s the part that’s missing when people go online,” Wright said.•
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Once Amazon runs the brick and Morter’s out, you pay what they want, and they will get it to you when they want!