Razzle Dazzle to close, Shakedown Street to move
Jul. 24—Two longtime Main Street businesses in downtown Oneonta are going to make some moves.
Razzle Dazzle, at 248 Main St., is scheduled to close at the end of the month. Until then, everything in the store is marked down in a going out of business sale, including greeting cards for 25 cents, kitchen gadgets, toys, scarves, picture frames and the metal display fixtures.
Owner Debra North said Monday, July 24, that a few factors contributed to her decision.
She said that some of her five best-selling wholesale vendors began selling to big box stores, which are able to keep prices lower than she could. Competition from the convenience of online shopping is another factor.
"There's no face, there's no smile," she said about shopping online. "There was nothing, no connection, no nothing."
She added that she felt her longtime customers abandoned her, which became clear during a downturn in business during the last holiday season.
"It wasn't my lack of taste or setups," she said. "It was all about saving money."
She said that these trends also point to what's happening to many small-town businesses.
"There's other stores that are opening and closing within weeks of each other," she said. "It could just be the end our Main Street."
North said she opened her first store in downtown Oneonta in 1975. She said she hoped to make her business last for 50 years, but she'll fall just short of that goal at 48 years.
The storefront at 248 Main St. is her fourth location. All been on Main Street.
She began in a 300-square-foot location in the Oneonta Hotel, selling kitchen supplies, after a pig farm in Otego that she and then-husband Bruce North had failed. Their entire stock died of pasteurella pneumonia, and they decided to forgo starting over with farming and give business a try.
At the time, the couple were raising their three children: Marco — whose birth was captured as part of a documentary film on life and death that aired on PBS in 1968 — Anatole and Shasta. They divorced in 1989.
Debra North moved into the current store in 1995, she said. An artist, she designed the checkerboard-lined logo and the interior of the store. She even built a scale model to ensure a well-laid out floorplan, she said.
Despite the store's closure, North said she is focusing on gratitude, giving away handmade beaded necklaces with $20 cash purchases.
"It rounds me out, in a way," she said. "I have this opportunity to give people something I know that it comes from my [creative] gift and make them happy."
North said another Main Street staple, Shakedown Street, is planning to take over the storefront.
Shakedown Street store owner Vicki Reiss was not available for comment Monday.
