NATION Disposable mentality hurts fix-it businesses



Often, the cost of repairs and parts exceeds the cost of a new item.
ST. PETERSBURG TIMES
When Steve Ramsey studied electronics repair nearly 15 years ago, he thought he had hit a gold mine. He opened Steve's TV in Pinellas Park, Fla., in 1990 and had five technicians working for him, fixing nearly 60 televisions a week.
"We didn't even advertise," Ramsey says. "We had too much work already. Sometimes we'd do $2,000 in a day."
Those days -- and his employees -- are gone. Now he has just one subcontractor as needed, and he may have only five or six televisions come through each week. There are days when the store doesn't make a dime.
Ramsey's is just one of the industries feeling the pinch of the nation's growing "just buy a new one" mentality. Worn-out watches, soleless shoes, torn trousers, even crippled computers all meet the trash collector nowadays rather than a fix-it person.
"We've become a throwaway society, because everything's so cheap," Ramsey says. "The manufacturers don't want you to repair it. They want you to replace it. For instance, we didn't even have to learn the technology on DVDs because they got so cheap so quickly."
Rate of decline
The number of electronic service centers declined by an average of 8 percent each year between 1992 and 2002, according to the New York-based Professional Service Association. The more than 20,000 electronic fix-it stores nationally that existed in 1992 have dwindled by 55 percent to nearly 9,000. Appliance service centers haven't fared much better, dropping nearly a third from 18,546 to 12,647 in the decade.
Giant corporations like Home Depot and Sears further reduce the need for small repair shops by selling complete appliances for less than their parts can be bought.
In the past year and a half, Ladd Holub has seen repairs at his company, Ladd J. Holub Air Conditioning in St. Petersburg, Fla., slip because of products that are put together inexpensively overseas.
"It'll cost you between $135 to $200 to replace a fan motor, but you can just go down to Target and buy a new one for $89," Holub says.
Timepieces
Many clock experts, meanwhile, are nearing retirement and cannot find willing apprentices to learn the trade. James Lubic, executive director of the American Watchmakers-Clockmakers Institute in Ohio, says the industry could use 100 new repair experts a year to fix the expensive timepieces being produced today, but U.S. schools are turning out only half that number. Ten years ago, his group had 5,600 members; today, there are about 4,200.
"Worldwide production of high-end watches has exploded recently, and Americans are buying a lot of those," Lubic says. "The industry is hurting because there aren't enough professionals to fill the need."
Still, Orlando Perera, president of Perera Jewelry and Watch Repair in Tampa, says 30 to 40 percent of what customers bring in is not worth repairing.
"If you have a $30 watch, and it's going to cost you $45 to fix it, common sense tells you you're better off buying a new watch," says Perera, 38, whose family has run the shop for 23 years.
Shoe repairer Jung Kang says most of his customers are seniors who recognize the value in buying and keeping quality goods.
"They don't really care about style," Kang says. "They've had a pair of comfortable shoes for 10 or 15 years, and they don't want to throw them away."
Kang wishes he could boost revenue in his store, but he's willing to stick it out because the business makes him happy.
"Money is important, but there's more to life," Kang says. "I enjoy it when people come to have a shoe repaired, and they leave happy."