Atim Oton owns a jewelry and clothing store in Crown Heights. In 2004, she says people used to buy the same earrings in five different colors. They now pace themselves. But it doesn’t bother her — she’s just happy to keep her customers.
Atim, 43, used to be an architect and a professor at Parsons school of design. In 2004, she decided to become her own boss and opened a business. “I wanted a better quality of life,” she says. Her store is filled with handmade earrings and dresses that she bought during her numerous trips to Morocco, Nigeria and Senegal.
Over the past few years, she witnessed the economic crisis through the prism of her customers’ behavior. “In 2004, people would spend a ton of money on jewelry,” she says. “Now, people only buy one pair of earrings.
“It could be challenging,” she says. “But I prefer that, because I want to keep a customer. Someone who comes in here and blows their paycheck is not a customer. They’ll remember you negatively. You become their bad habit and I am not a bad habit.”
She has more committed small-quantity buyers now. As for the others, she teaches them not to buy five pairs of earrings all at once, she says. “I almost become a partner in their pocket.”
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