Although one cannot know what or how much of the ‘mixed’ economic news you pay attention to, my loyal readers may be interested to hear from me as their man on the ground in San Francisco: I have never, ever seen so many tourists. The famous venues here are replete with them- Fisherman’s Wharf, North Beach, Union Square, all the museums- heaving with them.
A large number are of a sort we haven’t seen- Russians and other eastern Europeans. Presumably their arrival has something to do with the relative weakness of the dollar, making thereby a holiday to San Francisco cheaper than, say, the Adriatic coast. Interestingly, these seem to be single destination package holidays that our European visitors are traveling on, as nearby destinations- Lake Tahoe and the Monterey peninsula, for instance- don’t seem to be as heavily traversed. Or if they are, it is with day-trippers only, as hotels there seem to have plenty of over-night accommodation available.
Locally, though, European tourists seem to be spending their money on, you’ve already guessed, Gap and Banana Republic clothing, and sale items- again, almost exclusively clothing- from Nordstrom’s and Macy’s. Yesterday, I fought my way through the crowds at Union Square to Saks to purchase a gift voucher for a friend’s birthday. I considered, frankly, giving him a voucher from Chappell & McCullar, but thought that was a bit mean. But I digress…
In spite of the huge numbers of tourist types making their way up and down Post Street, once I entered Saks, it was, well, sparse, shall we say, nearly empty save the well-turned out sales staff. The young man from whom I purchased the voucher said that traffic through the store was consistent with what they expect in the middle of the summer. It appeared to him, he said diplomatically, that the European tourists, of whom he was very aware, appeared to want to see different things in San Francisco. Different, apparently, than Saks- my words, not his. Although I haven’t made the effort to canvas either Nieman Marcus or Barney’s, I suspect their experience is the same.
Our European guests seem interested in English antiques, as our gallery traffic has been brisk, somewhat at odds, apparently, with Union Square. Brisk traffic, and interested in English antiques, but not, so far at least, with an interest that has translated into sales for export. I’ve read over the course of the past year or so about the ‘repatriation’ of European antiques from the United States, but we haven’t seen it. With the pound and particularly the euro strong against the dollar, purchases of this sort make some ostensible sense, but practically, for the retail antiques buyer, it makes none at all. Transport to Europe from either of the coasts is a fairly expensive proposition as the cost of air shipment has ramped up because of rising fuel prices and the reduction in numbers of flights. If you don’t know it, not all of what goes into the belly of a passenger aircraft is your luggage- a fair bit of it is freight. As well, once an antique piece arrives in Europe from the United States, it is subject to Value Added Tax- in England, where the assessment is the lowest of any country in the EU, the assessment is 5% of the declared value of the piece, or what Her Majesty’s Customs and Excise says the value is- whichever is more. We do have some sales of English antiques from our San Francisco galleries to European buyers, but not many.
The long and short of it is, we are replete with travelers- glad to see them, but not expecting much in the way of sales- nor, it appears, are any other luxury goods dealers.
With all that, gallery traffic still represents almost as important a numbers game for us as do actual sales. We log every single gallery visitor that comes through the door, and make an effort to interface with all of them- to the extent that our visitors feel comfortable doing so. ‘In your face’ sales techniques are off-putting in the extreme- we have taken our cue from the diplomatic techniques of Saks Fifth Avenue. Still, we know that the more people that look at our goods, the more chance we have to market them. Interest and good gallery traffic always presage good sales.