Swan Street businessman Mousa Moses predicts Barbados may be seeing the end of medium-sized retail businesses such as the one he is now winding down.
Moses is closing after 52 years, the last of his generation of businessmen to call it quits on a street which once bustled with retail stores, many of which like his, sold fabric. After the closure there will be only two fabric stores remaining on Swan Street.
He told the Barbados Business Authority “Our biggest killer is expenses – staff, electricity, taxes. In contrast he said small entrepreneurs now renting shops in the many renovated buildings around Bridgetown had “small expenses”.
His son Martin who will be diversifying into a new type of retail business in partnership with his brother Nicholas explained “persons feel better working for themselves for less pay”.
“It gives them a sense of being self-supporting. A lot of people will leave jobs paying them better to go and work harder for less, for themselves. But it gives them a greater feel of achievement.”
Moses said Swan Street was the main street where low-income earners shopped when he first came to Barbados.
Explaining his reaons for closing, he said: “We are rebuilding. We are either going to have this in a mall or we are going to lease it because my sons don’t want this again.”
