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Dreams Incubate in Shopping Mall Carts
Gungor said he moved here because of a fascination with American culture. "I like the U.S. because everybody smiles," Gungor said. "I come here and everybody say: 'Good morning. Good morning.' "
'Never Be Afraid'
Milagros Ford owns two kiosks downstairs from Gungor. She said she grew up in a squatters town in the Philippines and became obsessed with fashion as a teen. She won some beauty pageants and then, 11 years ago, at age 19, moved to Fairfax to marry an American pen pal.
  Milagros Ford, left, owner of two kiosks in Tysons Corner Center, helps Alison Kelleher, a Georgetown student, at Ford's jewelry kiosk, Trendy. (By Sarah L. Voisin -- The Washington Post) |
After working at some teen clothing and accessory retail shops, Ford started a seasonal sunglasses cart called Cool Eyes three years ago. It required a $15,000 investment. To select the shades, Ford pored over fashion magazines and picked out styles favored by Hollywood stars. The business quickly became profitable.
A year later, she opened a second kiosk, called Trendy. She sells earrings made in China and shipped from a warehouse in New York, along with shell jewelry sent by her siblings, whom she has helped support. It has taken longer to make money selling jewelry, Ford said.
When teenage girls stop by looking for the perfect earrings to accompany their homecoming dresses, Ford does her best to charm them. She quickly pulls out InStyle magazine and points out that celebs such as LeAnn Rimes and Amy Yasbeck are wearing big earrings with long strapless dresses. And she says things such as, "Girlfriend, that looks good on you."
If business is slow, she tries to keep herself inspired. "It's tough being in retail," she said, still smiling. Then she pulled a slip of paper out of a glass jar of motivational sayings that she reads each day. "Never be afraid to make mistakes," the paper read.
"I'm not going to be standing here looking pretty at a kiosk for the rest of my life," Ford said. She said she hopes to move to a permanent store one day.
Adapting to the Market
Tchama, 28, also has expansion plans. He left his father's chicken farm in Togo to study computer networking at Virginia Tech in 1999. After completing his degree, he worked as an information technology contractor for a federal agency for a few years but grew bored. So, more than two years ago, Tchama entered the kiosk business with a stand in the Mall at Prince George's and a second one the next year at Westfield Shoppingtown Wheaton.
"I can clearly see my future in this," he said while sitting at his stand and threading several necklaces with red, black and green beads. "I put my energy and talent in this. It is my own thing."
He entered the business when he met a Kenyan woman who was returning to Africa and looking to sell her African art and jewelry kiosk. Tchama quit his job and bought the kiosk and a storehouse of merchandise for $20,000. In six months, he broke even on the investment.
He traveled to Togo, Ghana and Mali, where he met artisans and arranged regular shipments of merchandise. The wooden masks, soapstone sculptures, silver jewelry and leather bags from Africa sold well. But he noticed that many of the customers in the malls were Central American immigrants.
So he has started carrying Central American items, such as dog tags with the Salvadoran flag. And he is planning a trip to Mexico to find authentic Latin American crafts to sell. Meanwhile, Tchama is investing in a computerized system of cash registers that will allow him to hire more employees and expand into other malls.
