As Americans search for normalcy following the devastating terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, retailers are noticing a change in the most normal of American pastimes: shopping.
Area merchants said that following some slow days immediately after the attacks, business started to pick up again last week.
“I was walking around the mall today, and I saw shopping bags,” Old Orchard Shopping Center’s senior marketing manager, Maria Berg-Stark, said Monday. “It’s still a little bit slow. Everyone’s slow.”
Many businesses and malls, including Old Orchard, 34 Old Orchard Rd., closed Sept. 11 out of respect for the victims of the attacks.
“Shopping was not a concern of the day, ” Berg-Stark said. “People needed to be home, not out shopping.”
Even though shoppers are now back in the malls, they are making different kinds of purchases, Berg-Stark said. Expensive items such as electronics remain in the showroom while patriotic items like flags and clothing with U.S. symbols are selling well.
The Chicago’s Mustard Seed Christian Bookstore, 1143 W. Sheridan Road, had five or six people asking for flags, according to manager Phillip Bujnowski. Although the bookstore does not sell U.S. flags, Bujnowski said he did notice increased sales for candles and religious books that discuss grief.
“We’re almost sold out of boxes of vigil candles,” he said. “We had 10 to 12 boxes and are now down to one.”
Bujnowski said each box has about 100 candles and is traditionally used for Catholic Easter services. He said that the store normally sells about two or three religious books dealing with grief each month, but in the week following the tragedy, they sold five or six. Bujnowski said Ingram Publishers, the bookstore’s distributor, expected an increase in demand for these types of books.
But Berg-Stark said it is too early to predict the long-term effects of the tragedy on the economy.
“I’m hearing a lot of differing opinions,” she said. “Travel is obviously down. But though people may not be spending their money on trips, they may turn around and spend it on other things. It might stimulate the economy.”
Lynn Killinger, general manager of The Homestead, 1625 Hinman Ave., said business was down 4 percent or 5 percent following the attacks, but the hotel is still booked up for NU’s Parents Weekend on Oct. 20 and 21. According to Smith Travel Research Institute, U.S. hotel revenue plunged 20 percent the week of Sept. 16.
While Berg-Stark said consumer confidence was down, the effect on the North Shore might not be as severe as elsewhere in the country.
“Shoppers (in the Evanston area) … have more disposable incomes,” she said. “The everyday spending may have changed slightly. I don’t think we’re any more recession-proof than anyone else.”
Media and pop culture retailers also are noticing some changes in their sales.
As Hollywood and the entertainment industry react to the attacks by postponing the release of movies and re-editing existing film and music videos, area retailers say they will not pull anything off their shelves.
“We try not to censor what we have in the store,” said Mary Finn, assistant manager at Barnes & Noble Booksellers, 1701 Sherman Ave. “I don’t think we carry anything anyone would seriously object to.”
At Barnes & Noble, 1701 Sherman Ave., sales of history books have increased, according to Finn. The store also is selling out of books about Nostradamus, the 16th century French prophet who allegedly predicted the attack on New York City. Nostradamus-themed books topped the Amazon.com bestseller list following the attacks, but sales have since dropped.
Other books that jumped in the rankings on Amazon.com include “Twin Towers: The Life of New York City’s World Trade Center,” ranked eighth on the bestseller list, and “The New Jackals: Ramzi Yousef, Osama bin Laden and the Future of Terrorism,” ranked twelfth.
Finn said most of the increased sales are because of people coming in looking for titles they have seen mentioned in newspaper or magazine articles.
Drew Thomas, manager of Video Adventure at 1926 Central St., said the store experienced a 50 percent decrease in its business between Sept. 11 and Sept. 14 while people watched news coverage of the attacks.
Business returned to normal by the first weekend after the attack, but there has been increase in people renting movies about Nostradamus, movies with scenes containing the twin towers and disaster movies.
“An obnoxious amount of people are renting movies like ‘The Siege’, kind of mimicking what’s going on,” video clerk Joe Witkowski said.
Movies like “The Siege” and “Diehard” flew off the shelves like new releases, Thomas said. Normally, older movies are rented once every seven to 14 days. But those movies and others like them have been checked out every day for the past two weeks.
“They were as hot as getting ‘Spy Kids,’ which just came out,” Thomas said.
Another popular title was “The Man Who Saw Tomorrow,” a film about Nostradamus. There is a 14-day waiting list to rent it, Thomas said. He recently ordered a second copy for the store.
People also are renting the 1976 version of “King Kong” in which the gorilla climbs the World Trade Center towers.
Witkowski said the release of the movie “A Knight’s Tale” on video will be postponed until Friday because a preview for “Spider-Man,” which appeared before the film, must be edited because it shows images of the twin towers.
At Wherehouse Music, 1711 Sherman Ave., sales of pop music have declined in favor of more patriotic music, assistant manager Jimmie Mead said. Big sellers included Lee Greenwood, the country artist known for his song “God Bless the U.S.A.,” and John Philips Sousa, the well-known patriotic composer famous for the march “Stars and Stripes Forever.”
Both Wherehouse Music and Old Orchard are taking donations to assist victims of the attacks, which the companies will match dollar for dollar.
