No shortage of spending in PWC

John Merli
Published: November 11, 2008

You only had to drive through the nearly empty parking lot in the otherwise bustling Potomac Mills area this past weekend to see that things were not going well for Circuit City. Only a sprinkling of
vehicles dotted the large lot situated just off busy Smoketown Road, and traffic inside the store (to be kind) was sparse.

Yesterday, to no one’s real surprise, the Richmond-based consumer electronics store chain filed for bankruptcy protection from creditors, but it’s planning to stay open for business for the holiday sales
season that officially gets underway on Black Friday, Nov. 28. Given the troubled economy, sales over the next several weeks are forecast to be among the worst in decades. But not all merchants will
suffer equally, and some may even prosper.

Circuit City said it plans to cut at least 700 additional jobs immediately — in addition to last week’s word in Richmond that it plans to lay off several thousand workers nationally when it shuts down 20
percent of its stores nationwide. I myself had stopped going to Circuit City about a decade ago because I felt pressured by sales people the moment I walked in the front door (a dubious strategy that was
more widely prevalent when stores routinely paid their sales people on commission). This is also the same chain, you may recall, that fired a lot of its workers a while ago in order to hire new ones at
lower salaries. (Where are those pesky PR guys when you really need one?)

I don’t know if, statically, Prince William represents a microcosm of the entire country right now, but we seem to be a region of sharp contrasts when it comes to consumer preferences. Despite some of
the highest foreclosure rates in the nation, transportation gridlock, a growing unemployment rate and other economic troubles, we don’t exactly pinch our pennies like it was the coming of the next Great
Depression.

We now have a couple of Wegmans (surely among the crème de la crème of supermarkets) book-ending both ends of Prince William, and on weekends they are completely jammed with wide-eyed,
hungry customers. Harris Teeters are also popping here and there, and they seem to be doing a brisk business, as well. Try getting an empty table (or one of those big cushy chairs) at Borders Books at
Potomac Mills or at Barnes & Noble in Manassas, or eating out almost anywhere on a Friday or Saturday night. Or maybe buying a ticket to that “Madagascar” sequel at the cinema without standing in a
long line. Soon you could begin to wonder what all the dire economic naysaying is all about.

While it’s true that things are hard (or getting there) for a lot of families, and apparently the depth of our so-called “discretionary spending” is not what it used to be, at least we’re getting more selective on
where and what to spend it on. But it seems we are still determined to spend it, one way or another. Along with gourmet salami from France and exotic fruit we’ve never heard of, sales of some bigger
ticket items may not be down as much as first thought.

Those shiny new HDTV sets that show right down to the stubble on the Redskins defensive line? Such sales items (considered a luxury even a year ago) may not suffer all that much because let’s face it:
TV is the chief means of entertainment for most people and even if the world collapses around us, we do like our entertainment. (Besides, dish out a $1,000 HD set today and over the next 10 years it will
have cost you a mere 27 cents a day.) Now with gas in Prince William dipping below $2 a gallon, making several shopping trips all over Northern Virginia is not the financial strain it might have been only a
few months ago.

It may be more luck than science that some businesses (notably restaurants and department stores) that might appear nearly identical will fail, while others flourish. But just like those jammed parking
lots at Potomac Mills alongside the occasionally empty ones, people do seem to sense the differences and respond accordingly with their wallets.

John Merli has been a Prince William County resident since 1984, and a Potomac News columnist since 1985. He has worked in the media for more than 30 years. E-mail him at .