Spiritual Jewelry & Other Tools for Personal Development

At May 2009’s regional dowsing conference in Houston, George Goodnow gave a lecture that I found most interesting… he connected the dots on why the new age stores have been dropping off the map. George’s company, Xeonix, sells pendulums of all sorts to the wholesale sources like AzureGreen, as well as direct sales to the new age stores. George states that as many as 40% of the new age shops have been closing up each year, with perhaps 10% in new stores being opened to take their place.  There are several different explanations for this trend.

In the past 10 years I have seen two of the oldest new age bookstores in the US close their doors, one in San Diego and one in Houston. I don’t know about the one in California, which was the oldest one, but Aquarian Age Bookshelf here in Houston died when its elderly lady owners died one by one. Volunteers helped keep the store running while the last of its owners did the downhill slide, and with no legal secession, the owner’s children had to liquidate and close it down. It really was a shame to see it go, but it was at least a couple of years ahead of the trend we are now seeing.

The advent of the worldwide web is what really has been killing the new age “Harry Potter” type shops. Most of the new age shops were the primary distribution point of metaphysical and holistic books, and the owners were generally very knowledgeable people who could talk reasonably with a person who was in flux (as in awakening to the spiritual path and wanting to make changes). This little bookshop owner would listen carefully, offer some well-considered advice, and then lead the customer to a selection of books and be able to recommend a selection or two, so the customer could peruse and make a selection, and perhaps add a few other things while meandering towards the register. The owners typically provided a service and information out of passion.

When the web and on-line discount book outlets gained acceptance, the new age shops really lost their primary line of sales. The new age shops went to selling primarily consumables… everything from nutritional supplements, candles, pendulums, bric-a-brac, crystals, ritual stuff and the like. And the owners typically had to go to work at a “day job” to support themselves while leaving some kid behind to manage the shop. The advice spewing from the kid behind the register wasn’t on the level, and the consumables didn’t work, so the service wasn’t there any more. In summary, the bric-a-brac can’t deal with causation and can’t help people who really need information. You can’t expect a kid to take the place of a seasoned and passionate professional.

I had noticed a long time ago that no new age shop could last very long unless they had classroom space and the right kind of teachers, and could book a selection of guest lecturers… basically a draw for the shop. The success of the classroom depends heavily on maintaining a good website, advertising presence, and mailing out a newsletter at least every other month.

Some successful shops I’ve seen had small offices they could sub-let to various professionals such as reiki practitioners, reflexologists, massage therapists, psychics, astrologers, hypnotherapists and the like, which would ideally bring in their own customers who would also patronize the shop.  I’ve seen various arrangements on these two fronts. The only way a shop owner can keep related professionals as a feature in their shop is to actually charge that related professional a pro-rata share of the square footage and utilities… the arrangement where the owner simply took a percentage of the professional’s income didn’t work at all. If the “related professional” isn’t in business to grow their own business, the arrangement will not work.

I’ve seen some of these shops coming and going over the years simply because the owners started out too far in debt to sustain the shop long enough for it to take off, and a number of them tried to shore up their inventory by carrying a lot of consigned goods (which has its own liabilities). I’ve seen several go out of business because the owners didn’t have the requisite knowledge base or integrity to make it work. When it comes to opening a retail shop of any sort, it takes serious capital to go large enough to sustain. You really can’t shoestring it and hope to build up. You need substantial inventory and do consistent advertising and events to draw people in.

NOW…

People are going to the bigger retail chains for the new age books, which are now being exposed to a more mainstream audience. Of course, you will find lots of new age authors interspersed among the rest of the store’s inventory… which may or may not help. I’ve seen the Mary Summer Rain books stuck in the “American Indian” section, and the Abraham Hicks and Stuart Wilde books stuck in the “self help” section.  If the customers cannot locate what they are looking for, it won’t be purchased and the book publishers will have to buy back that inventory after a while. That will eventually tend to narrow the range of what will be published.

My local Barnes & Noble, as described above, has a pretty small new age section, limited to some paranormal crap, some wiccan stuff,  a bunch of astrology stuff, and the usual hack Sylvia Browne and other assorted “psychic” fluff authors. If you want a particular author, you have to go fish with the computer wizard.

There is still a crying need for passionate experts, but without a platform, such as a shop to work out of, they have to find other outlets. My guess is that you will see more new age shops among the permanent booths at the weekend flea markets (like Houston’s Traders’ Village and Trading Fair II), and most will either stay on that level or expand to an on-line presence. Some may find a small house to expand into in a neighborhood that has gone commercial.  The whole dynamic of a shop changes completely when commercial retail space is involved because the lease contracts are an inch thick and expensive to get out of.

Most of the “newly awakened”, however, may not think to look in these flea market stalls. That’s where I, and people like me, come in. People contact me like I contacted various new age bookstore owners back when I first awakened. I will talk to them, comfort them, coach them, dowse for them, and even e-mail them some information to peruse. I can refer them to other sources and books. If they are local, I can also do geopathic or ghost clearings. Since I don’t have to worry about paying rent on some retail space, I don’t have to hard-sell anything, either. 

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Rev. Suzanne Powell manufactures and markets a full line of line of natural stone “medicine jewelry”, subtle energy tools, pendulums, angel and fairy art and “spiritual soap” through her website, http://www.turtleisland.cc  

Originally posted 2010-03-04 03:33:59. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Tags: New age, personal development, psychic reader, Reiki, spiritual path, teaching

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 17th, 2010 at 3:46 AM and is filed under Preachin', Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.