Maureen Costello
Wholesale Distributor

What problems are encountered when running a chain of retail stores?

I think when you have a chain of retail stores especially if the first ones are very successful. You end up every once in a while opening up a store that is not successful. And there is a tendency not to want to acknowledge that you made a mistake in picking the location and you want to think that if I just work a little harder at it I can turn this into a profit. But in reality what you end up doing is spending so much time doing is trying to fix a loser that you really don't do the best you can with your winners and some of them become losers too. So I think retailers who are expanding their chains need to be really honest with themselves, be willing to cut their losses if that's what it takes to get rid of something that's not making money or sometimes you can turn lemons into lemonade and you can sell a loser to somebody else. You can make money or at least get yourself out of it and not take a loss and then you can go back to operating your successful stores.