While US consumer sentiment hits an all-time low, New York City’s candy stores are expanding – and their owners say the secret is simple: people will always buy sweets, even when money is tight.
Mitchell Cohen, third-generation owner of Economy Candy on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, has seen it before. His shop, the oldest sweet store in New York, opened in 1937 towards the end of the Great Depression. Back then, it started as a hat and shoe repair shop with candies sold from a cart out front. “People couldn’t afford to get things repaired,” Cohen says. So his grandfather pivoted entirely to the affordable sweet treats. Eighty-nine years later, the business is still going strong.
“New York candy stores expand as US consumer sentiment hits all-time low, with owners citing the 'lipstick effect'.”
“The dollar isn’t going as far these days,” Cohen says. “Inflation, uncertainty, all that, but there’s always candy.”
Official data shows US retail sales still growing, up 4.9% in April from a year earlier. But one closely watched report recorded consumer sentiment at a new all-time low in May. Against that backdrop, candy stores are thriving.
Kate Bolger, a former movie producer, is opening The Village Confectionery next month in Sleepy Hollow, a Hudson Valley town 28 miles north of New York City. “Everyone can partake,” she says, because candy has a low price point. While consumers may be putting off big purchases, they can still treat themselves to a piece of candy – an extension of the “lipstick effect” theory popularised in the early 2000s, where people buy small luxuries when they cannot afford expensive ones.
Upmarket candy store BonBon, founded in 2018 by three Swedish expats, now has five shops across Manhattan and Brooklyn, and another in the Hamptons on Long Island that opened last summer. It imports its products from Sweden, where confectionery must use all natural ingredients, and has seen a surge in global popularity thanks to social media.
BonBon co-founder Leo Schaltz says the company avoids main avenues to keep rents low. “You wouldn’t want to be on Broadway,” he says. Instead, the firm takes over small units on side streets. “You don’t want to overpay for rent, and it’s easier to make a space feel cozy when it’s small.”
The trend echoes Cohen’s philosophy: “A little goes a long way.” As economic uncertainty deepens, New York’s sweet shops are proving that even in tough times, there is always room for a little treat.