In the heart of downtown Brampton, a historic craft store has been in business for nearly 50 years. They will now be closing permanently after years of struggles.
Perpetual Bazaar is a consignment shop with volunteer staff, they sell all sorts of handmade crafts made by seniors.
Former shop President, Kat Pechmann, says the closure is mainly due to a lack of customers.
“Downtown Brampton has been seeing a lot of small stores closing down because there’s nothing to draw people down here anymore,” said Pechmann.
She added that in the summertime, downtown Brampton used to have a farmers market which would bring a lot of people in the store.
This helped them a lot and is the reason why they were able to stay open for so long; the money they would make in the summer helped them to get through the rest of the year.
Ever since the market moved, the business started struggling to stay afloat.
“In the last couple years since they’ve moved our summertime income has dropped to less than a quarter of what it was,” said Pechmann.
This is just one of the main factors that played a part in their closure, another reason has been the change of times.
Long gone are the days when people used to handcraft most of the clothes they wore or bought them from people who knew how to do it.
These local craft stores cannot keep up with mass-produced clothing coming from China and sold in millions of stores around the world.
“It seems to be a mindset with younger people that things have to be mass produced or else they are not good enough,” said Pechmann.
She stressed that people just don’t care about quality-made things anymore they just prefer the name rather than the item itself.
Surprisingly enough, the COVID-19 pandemic had a positive effect on their business.
Pechmann said that while they had less customers and they lost a lot of volunteers, they figured out a way to make the pandemic work in their favour.
“During the pandemic, a lot of people were on the hunt for masks so we decided to start making our own and we sold them to the pharmacy just up the road,” said Pechmann.
Ironically, what should’ve put the nail in the coffin ended up saving them thanks to some smart thinking.
After announcing that they would be closing next month, the reaction from the community has been strong.
Cathie Fleming, a regular at Perpetual Bazaar for over 40 years, can’t believe that her beloved store will be no more very soon.
“I am really going to miss it; my favourite thing about this place is that everything is handmade, unique and made in Canada,” said Fleming.
She says that one of the best things she’s ever bought at this shop is an ugly stick.
An ugly stick is a musical instrument famous in Newfoundland. It is made out of household and tool shed items.
Perpetual Bazaar President Jane Matthew believes that more people should be supporting local businesses like this one.
She said that people have been asking them to get help from the government but there was simply nothing that they could do to save the business.
“This was such a unique business that it simply didn’t qualify for a grant,” said Matthew.
From helping out during COVID-19, donating to charities and giving a big hand to the seniors of the community, they have done just about everything they could.
Perpetual Bazaar has been nothing short of a success throughout its history, and it ultimately reached the goal that was set out 49 years ago.
“Our goal was always to help seniors have a sense of belonging through the things that they sold in our shop. We wanted to help them feel good mentally, and physically,” said Pechmann.