RETAILERS have long been a mainstay of the Jamaican business sector, but one Kingston storeowner says the new taxation measures will only serve to tighten her already diminishing earnings.

An imminent increase in electricity costs is the greatest concern for Liz Esmaya, operator of the Half-Way-Tree Road branch of a three store chain

that sells on-trend clothing, shoes,

and accessories.

“The light is the biggest one,” she said. “For business people when it comes to light — not even only business people, for everybody — light is their life.”

Esmaya said her store’s electricity bill was unsustainable with even 10 per cent GCT, to the point where she had to take cost-cutting measures such as using energy-saving light bulbs. She also employs other methods of conservation, such as leaving the store’s main air-conditioning unit off for most of the day.

“But once we have a customer, depending on if they feel hot — we turn it on,” she said. “I don’t want the customer complaining, some customers will start fanning, or they’ll start saying they’re hot.”

The same process goes for lighting, with most of the store usually

being illuminated by nothing but natural light.

“Once we have a customer we turn them back on,” Esmaya said. “And later on in the day, around five o’clock we need to turn it on, because by then its already dark.”

Esmaya said the recently announced revenue measures — such as the planned increase of GCT on electricity from 10 per cent to 16.5 per cent, applicable to usage over 300 kilowatt hours — will make it harder to eke out profits from a retailing enterprise that it is already suffering from the weak consumer environment.

“‘This is supermarket money’,” Esmaya said many customers lament when forking out the cash to pay for their goods. “Before, customers just shop — they would just buy what they wanted. Now, most times customers just look around, they’re just eye-shopping.”

While declining to give exact figures, Esmaya said definitively that the year so far has been one of the worst in terms of revenue, and that consumers hit by rising prices

on food items are even less willing to spend on non-essentials like clothes and accessories.

“When its not payday time, people are not shopping,” she said. “When they get pay, it’s only then we can survive. For example, the third week of the month — money is very tight for them, so the third week is very difficult for me.”

The store has had to become more innovative in its attempt to hold on to an increasingly spending — shy public, and Esmaya said she has ramped up incentives to buy with discount offerings of 10 per cent, and older items being sold at 30 and

50 per cent off.

But customers aren’t always keen on buying the most heavily

marked-down products, and shoes in particular move the slowest off the shelves.

“Mostly they buy the new things,” she said. “So what we do, we also reduce the amount of stock that we buy and we’re more careful what styles we choose.”

The news of the minimum $60,000 income tax that will be required from all registered companies is also another burden, but Esmaya was still optimistic.

“I have many things coming to me, yet we try, we still survive,” she said. Turning to her two in-store attendants, down from the three she had

ast year, Esmaya added, “Turn on the lights for me please, customers are coming now.”