After nearly 30 years in the greeting card business, Jai Shim has mastered the lingo. The Hermosa Beach business owner peppers her speech with short, aphoristic bits of wisdom and emotion. But this week, even Jai was at a loss for words.
This week marks the end of business for the Hallmark store located near the intersection of Pacific Coast Highway and Pier Avenue. On Monday afternoon, all the cards were gone,with only a few trinkets remaining near the cash register. On Friday, a couple from Pasadena came and bought most of the store’s vintage merchandise, 70 or 80 boxes worth.
Jai smiled but choked up with tears as she explained how much the people who had passed through the shop had meant to her.
“They are more than customers,” Jai said. “They are in my life, and I am in theirs.”
The store is closing, Jai said due to a confluence of factors: her lease is expiring, rent is due to rise, and like all retailers she is feeling increased competition from the Internet. The store has three additional employees, plus Jai’s daughter, who works part-time at the store. At least one of them will move on to another Hallmark store in the area.
The Hallmark store was an original tenant of Plaza Hermosa, the large retail complex containing Vons, CVS and others. Jai took over the store from its original owners, neighbors of hers, a year or two after it opened.
Before opening the store, Jai had anticipated that her Hermosa customers would be funky, bohemian beach types. This assumption dislodged itself as she learned to evaluate each customer with fresh eyes.
“Our customers are very special,” Jai said. “We have to have something different.”
Working as a franchise of a large corporation, Jai received constant input that shaped the stock of her store. In later years, computer algorithms began tried to predict exactly what kind of cards a Hermosa shopper would want.
“Hallmark even studies what color cards people like,” Jai said. “The Torrance store might carry something we never sell in here.”
But finding the right card or gift was never as simple as ones and zeros. Customers said that Jai could be counted on for insight on every occasion.
“She always had ideas,” said Gerald Ferrell, a Manhattan Beach resident who regularly passed through the store. “If I came in there to look for a Mother’s Day gift for my wife, she’d help me pick something out. Very personal service.”
With the closing of the store, Jai has no plans to slow down. A self-described “workaholic,” she has previously worked as a teacher and as a bank teller. She is enrolling in computer courses, and plans to work for another dozen years or so.
And while she will miss interacting in the store with her many regular customers, she is confident that they will stay in her life.
“I don’t go out often, I’m not a traveller,” Jai said. “But whenever I do, I always meet our customers.”
