The Collegian

Issue date: 3/5/09 Section: Arts

Media Credit: William Clayton Hillsdale's top prospective students compete for scholarships to the college. President Larry Arnn spoke at a special dinner in McNamara Rehearsal Hall last month.

Retail stores from Pier 1 Imports to Walmart and Office Depot are handling the country's economic downturn poorly, with quarter losses, store closings and the in the case of some chains, bankruptcy. That could be good news for budget-hunting college students.

Stores that may provide better shopping grounds to students, however, are more likely to be ones closing down for good.

Circuit City, and on the pricier side, Iridesse, a pearl company run by Tiffany & Co., plan to close their doors as soon as settlements are made and inventory sold, their Web sites say.

With fourth-quarter earnings out for many big department stores, the flurry of closing announcements has picked up again.

In the last week alone, Gap, Borders, Sears, Office Depot, Pier 1 Imports and P.F. Chang's announced they will close stores, according to news media reports, with more predicted to give notice in the future.

At the beginning of February, Standard and Poor placed six department stores on a credit watch, its Web site said. Dillard's, Macy's, Nordstrom, JCPenney, Sears and Neiman Marcus were predicted to be less stable in coming months than formerly thought.

Standard and Poor Credit Analyst Gerald Hirschberg said in a Feb. 6 podcast on Standard and Poor's Web site the early report reflected his team's worry for the market in the coming year.

"We took action because we had initiated a comprehensive review of the department store sector," Hirschberg said, "and based on preliminary analysis at least, we decided that department stores would be in for a much more severe operating performance in 2009 than we had previously anticipated."

But some stores are flourishing in this market: off-price retailers, stores that sell the extra clothes or goods produced by factories for big names. Ross Stores, Inc., finished 2008 with 52 new locations and increased the quarterly payback to stock-holders by 16 percent, a Feb. 5 company press release said.

These kinds of stores continue to be good options for budget-beholden students, especially now that their inventories may increase from other department stores going out of business.

Students who are looking for good deals should check out Circuit City's clearance sales lasting through March, and keep their eyes open for going-out-of-business sales at different department stores.

Chains like Peebles, Ross, Dress for Less and Marshalls, while offering good deals, do not offer on-line catalogues, potentially making them less appealing to Hillsdale students.

Sophomore Lauren Demianiuk said if she were closer to those stores, she might consider changing her shopping habits.

"My patronage is pretty established," Demianiuk said. "If I knew that there's a close-out or clearance in a store, I would be more tempted to shop at stores I didn't usually shop at. If they are not in the area, I'm not going to drive three hours to find that store though."

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