On the day after he announced to the community that Trader Jim’s Camera•Video, one of Culver City’s oldest businesses, was closing and going online fulltime, owner Jim Reisman said he will be operating the same way he has for 23 years. “My experience with the vast amount of small businesspeople who are embracing and going on the Internet is that customers still want service. That is a constant. People are unhappy with the fact they have virtually no choice but to go to a store where there is going to be an unpleasant retail experience. They would love for a store like mine to survive. One lady cried over what is happening. They love the feeling they get when they are in a store like mine. But the realities of the world are otherwise. They are not going to take a camera they can buy for $200 and pay an extra $75 so I can afford to pay my rent, and so that I can provide services.”
Service, Please
“Service,” a much discussed concept in the retail world, is an abstract for many consumers, say veteran entrepreneurs, until they have a specific need. “I think people don’t believe in service,” Mr. Reisman said. “When they find it, they stick to it. Most stores that promise service don’t deliver on their promise. Take Nordstrom’s, for example. I don’t think the Nordstrom’s staff is service-oriented at one store I know. When The Grove opened, I went to the Nordstrom’s there. I don’t know who is doing the hiring for that store, but the difference in service is tangible. Service is where it’s found.”
Venturing Into Cyberspace
Five years ago, Mr. Reisman — always with a churning, changing world on his mind — began dabbling, then broadening, the business he was conducting on the Internet (www.traderjimscamera.com). He may have been thinking forward to the day when he would transform from bricks-and-mortar to cyberspace. But he did not expect it to happen as swiftly as the sword came down this month. Shortly after January had begun, Mr. Reisman’s new landlord announced the rent was doubling, effective immediately. Mr. Reisman had been ruminating about a 25 percent hike, which he could have covered. As matters stand today, Trader Jim’s is to be out of the premises by Jan. 31, 13 days away. Will he seek an extension? “That is in the works,” he said. “But I am so beat, I almost don’t care. The whole experience, the way I am regarded after having been a tenant for 23 years… But I must say. I understand (the landlord’s) position. I have heard the words. But I don’t understand how you treat someone who has been a tenant for 23 years this way. If my situation were that untenable, why did it take a year and a half after the expiration of my lease to do this? Rather than compromise with me, they would rather see me go. When I tried to justify my reasons for thinking their rent request was unreasonable, it became adversarial. They just felt I had no right to say that.”
The mercurial rent developments of the opening days of January, said Mr. Reisman from behind a slender smile, amounted to an old cowboy aphorism, ‘Get Out of Town Before Sunset.’”
The camera store opened in 1949, when the building at 4349 Sepulveda Blvd., was new, well before the 48-year-old Mr. Reisman was born. By the time Mr. Reisman acquired the store, it was called “Culver City Camera Center,” and had been a fixture in town for 34 years. Jim Moffet, the head of security for MGM Studios, relied on his good name in the community when he opened “Moffet’s Photo.” As Mr. Reisman explained, “This was a way for his wife and family to have something on the side. I think his wife was really into photography, and it was opened for her. Then the store was handed down to his son Don Moffet, who had less of an interest in the business. He ultimately sold it to a Korean gentleman, James Kim, and that is where I come into the picture. James Kim employed me in 1979 when I was 22 years old. I managed the store for him, and for a subsequent owner who stayed here for a very short period. The store wound up back in James’s hand. I, who had left, came back when I was 25 years old. James and I came to an agreement whereby I would take ownership of the store. It had been degraded downby that time (by the owner between Mr. Kim and Mr. Reisman) to almost nothing. The person James had sold the store to, was not prepared to be in this business.” A decade later, Mr. Reisman renamed the business Trader Jim’s, and that turns out to be the final change.
As he leaned across the counter, the stung owner told his tale so evenly that if this had been an EKG, they would have sent out a search team for his heart. Isn’t he upset? Trader Jim’s has been the passion of his life. “Of course,” said Mr. Reisman, “there is an emotional aspect. But that delves into areas of my personality nobody has time for. I have been through hard knocks. What I have come away with is, I certainly kick a wall or punch a door every once in a while. You know what? It feels like once I knew my staff (of 5) had a place to go (employment for all) — that was my biggest concern, it was okay. When I sat and thought for over a year, what if it comes down to needing to close the store, I decided I had a great group of people here. If I do what I plan, I won’t need their services anymore. They needed to be taken care of, and they have been. I made a few phone calls, and I found people who needed them. I also have found storage space(on Jefferson Boulevard). All I have to do now is empty the store out.”
But first, there is the matter of the next 13 days. Ain’t gonna be no fire sale while Mr. Reisman occupies the property. “I am trying to figure out the most reasonable, cost-effective way of putting signs in my window,” he said. “The signs are not going to say,
of Business!
Blowout Sale!’
“There is no sale going on,” said Mr. Reisman. “We still have good prices. I am going to sell until the last day we are open. I want the signs to say,
for 23 Great Years.’
“I can’t stand the fact I am leaving in the lurch those who like my kind of store. There really is not another store like this. We are a small, community-oriented, community-based camera store. We empower people to take a camera and take good pictures, and turn those into memories that become valuable.”
