Downtown store owners, from left, Susan La Page, Sonia Holbrook and Lisa Kauffman Albright strike a pose in La Page's Irish Gypsy. Photo Courtesy Lancaster Newspapers

Getting shoppers in the store without drastically reducing prices challenges a retailer's creativity.

Sunday News

February 8, 2009

Three ladies own shops downtown, have PMS, and want everybody to know about it.

In this case, PMS stands for "purses, martinis, shoes ... and more!" and the ladies - Susan LaPage of Irish Gypsy, Sonia Rose's Sonia Holbrook and Lisa Kauffman Albright of Bonbonnière - have teamed up to bring shoppers into Lancaster city without giving away their wares.

"Times are lean everywhere," said "Day of PMS" mastermind LaPage. "We want to entice customers downtown but we don't want to have everything on sale.

"And our stores are stronger together than by ourselves," LaPage said.

From noon to 3 p.m. today, Irish Gypsy, 52 N. Prince St., and Sonia Rose and Bonbonnière, 50 N. Queen St., will mix cocktails, camaraderie and chance, as anyone who visits all three stores may become the "PMS Queen," and win a collection of goodies from all three shops.

"This is a wonderful example of being creative to remind people about all the great things downtown," said Marshall Snively, deputy director of the James Street Improvement District.

A creative hook was exactly what LaPage, whose Irish Gypsy store sells women's fashions and shoes, was going for; drastic price slashes weren't, she said.

"When you go to the mall or big department stores and see '70 percent off' signs, it's just ridiculous," she said. "Small, independent businesses can't make it like that."

Besides close real estate and an esprit de corps, the three shops also share a clientele that appreciates - and is willing to pay for - the stores' unique offerings.

Prominent in Sonia Rose are purses that Holbrook designs herself. In April, her store will celebrate its fifth anniversary, and Holbrook attributes her success to "carrying things you can't get at the mall."

But none of the women are so sanguine that they believe their inventories insulate them from recession.

"I go home, and I turn on the news and see that 7,000 more people were laid off that day," LaPage said. "It's very scary but I'm optimistic.

"Maybe I'm naive?"

Said Holbrook of the economic squeeze: "There's not a single retailer that hasn't felt something."

But these three businesses are far from floundering, and the point of the Day of PMS is "to get people downtown, not to lure them to a big discount area," said Kauffman Albright, whose Bonbonnière is an upscale confectionery.

While the women all said they could think of no better place for their shops than downtown Lancaster, they still have work to do selling the city's charms to the hinterland.

Outside the city, Snively said, "there's still a stigma about the urban area. Events like this serve as reminders that the downtown has evolved."

Its evolution is ongoing, said LaPage, who will consider the Day of PMS a success if "women grab their girlfriends and come downtown and have fun. Hopefully, they leave with a purchase," she said, "but even if they don't, it keeps them connected to the downtown."

The epitome of enthusiasm, LaPage summed up the ladies' feelings about Lancaster city best:

"I wouldn't want to be anywhere else; I'm happy right smack where I am," she said. "Every place has pluses and minuses.

"We have more pluses here."