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Friday, December 26, 2008
Mark Douglas Jewelers Closing
We received word the other day tat the Mark Douglas Jewelers at the Center of Salisbury Mall will be closing their doors for good. They simply said, we can't make money at the Mall. Things weren't going well as it was and then the Mall Management allowed another Jewelery Store to open up right next to them. Another business in Salisbury bites the dust.
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17 comments:
well there goes that life time warranty that they gave on some stuff.
Don't blame the mall. Competition is necessary in a free society. How many other jewelry stores are in the mall? They all have the same stuff.
Like everything else here, one new one opens up and two close down.
Littman's did open up next to Mark Douglas, but the Mall wanted them to move there so the jewelry stores would be close together for shoppers. They used to be down further closer to Boscov's. I think it did hurt Mark Douglas's business, it's a shame.
Mark Douglas is closing and has been planning this for years. They closed a few of their other stores in other malls as well. I used to work for them and know this as a fact. I am not a mall fan by any means, but Mark Douglas always complained about the mall and never participated in any way to improve themselves or the mall.
Mark Douglas is only closing the location in the mall. The stores in Ocean City will remain open.
The rent in the mall is insane, I once heard it was $8000 a month for a kiosk? Factor in the hourly wages for 75 hours of open time, and if you're a full fledged store utilities, taxes, insurance, etc. That's alot of merchandise you'd have to sell. Now jewerly is like 300% markup, but you take average retail of 25% and paying 2 employees $8 an hour you'd have to sell $37,000 in merchandise a month just to cover those basic expenses, this is before any other business costs.
There's no question they have good reason to pack it up and get out of there. In my opinion, they have chosen a great time to close up shop. The economy is going down the tubes and the other comment about their other stores staying open in OC is correct. Sorry I forgot to mention that. I wish them lots of luck.
They have been saying they were going to close that store for several years. My daughter used to work for them. All the jewelry stores in the mall are on the corners right there in the same area. I cant see that Littman's necessarliy put a hurting on them. Besides-Littman's is a little higher end then Mark D.
I helped my daughter shop for an item there just a couple weeks ago. All 4 stores had the same item. It went like this:
Littman's: $159
Kay: $159
Zales: $129 discounted to $89
M. Douglas:$740 discounted to $179
No wonder...
I still cannot believe the amount of people that buy exclusively from jewelry stores! The markup is outrageous on that stuff and unless you need something specific or custom-made,it is a good idea to check out pawn shops, who can offer a better deal because they paid so little for it to begin with.
Barry G. hit the nail on the head, Mark Douglas is really expensive and I realize that they may not buy items in the bulk that these other stores do, but come on. I went in there over the holidays looking for earrings, even with their going out of business discount I got them over 150 dollars cheaper than at Kay's than at Mark Douglas.
I hate to see Mark Douglas Jewelers leave the mall. I have shopped there for years and found them to be very reasonable. They also had a selection that you couldn't find at the other jewelers.
Lets see.... Pawn shops rip off people when they sell their items, and now you want us all to go in there and let them rip us off. If you deal with pawn shops you are on the low end of society......
so?
zales is also closing - between 1/2-1/3 of their stores will be gone by the end of the year, including the salisbury location. and not because of anything political - because of wal-mart. if salisbury can't support their store here, they have to close don. that's the nature of business, not a consipracy of mall executives.
Joe:
It's called the free enterprise system, so let's get over it.
Plus, in a few weeks Obama will have a nice bailout for them -- and that's called "sharing the wealth"!
And what about Phillips closing in the Twilley Center -- our last local haberdasher?
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