On March 30, Morgan's Cauldron/Hand of Aries II closed its doors for good. It was more than the passing of the city of Philadelphia's only Wicca shop. Morgan's Cauldron was an icon: offering public rituals for the curious and those in need of fellowship, a point of contact for the media, and crossroads for people from all parts of the community.

At the beginning of May, Heather Kuhn, owner of Aphrodite's Dove in Jenkintown, announced that the store would close at the end of the month. Open under its current management since 2003, it served as a focal point for the Pagans of the northern Philadelphia suburbs. Despite a good location in the heart of Jenkintown's shopping district, the store just didn't get the buying traffic it needed to stay solvent.

Aphrodite's Dove will be the fourth pagan store in the Philadelphia area to close within the past year: Aside from Morgan's Cauldron, Gwendolinda's in Kennett Square closed on January 29, 2007, after five years in business; Lillian's Village in Collegeville closed in June 2006 after just eight months.

"Almost exactly one year to the day before we opened the store, my wife and I were on our honeymoon in New York, and I said over dinner, 'I want to start a Pagan store.' " says Paul Bagosy, who ran Lillian's Village. "I researched it out, talked to a few other owners, and worked up a business plan. This became my driving goal, my dream. It pretty much became an obsession, and it took over the part of my brain that was screaming, 'Idiot!' " 

However, the store was on the financial edge even before the doors opened. "Starting the store meant quitting my job to run it during regular business hours. That meant going down to a single income, which became a major cash flow problem later on. Gathering the initial funds was also a problem. We didn't have perfect credit going in, so pretty much all the funds we had came from savings or tapping into things we could finance."

The location, which seemed promising, turned out not to get much foot traffic - not even from the college just a few blocks away. There were problems with the store space itself, including problems with signage, and bad weather often discouraged visitors. 

Running out of money, Bagosy took a part-time job to help pay the bills, putting a further strain on his time, and even that wasn't enough. "The store had not, in a single month, brought in enough to cover the expenses. In fact, it hadn't even come within 50 percent of that mark. It simply couldn't sustain itself, and we couldn't sustain it, either. . . . At the point that we decided to close, it was a huge weight lifted from my shoulders. I started looking for a new job, and got one surprisingly quickly - making nearly double what I was making at the job I left to start the store.

"Running the store was a study in peering over the edge of oblivion," he concludes. "We managed to balance on it for a bit, but it quickly became a choice between stepping back or falling in. There was no room for the many errors that I made, and even if I hadn't, I probably still would have failed."

"It was a bittersweet ending at Gwendolinda's," says Gwendolinda of the store that bore her name. The store was open for five years, becoming a fixture in Kennett Square. "It was a tough and not so tough choice. Honestly, we just weren't getting enough biz to keep it rolling. I got so very burned out being there 24-7, trying to keep it going. You have to reinvest and spend a lot of money to keep a shop going!

"The store was one of the best things I have ever done in my life, and was very well received," she continues. "We had a lot of people stop in and share stories of self-discovery, supernatural phenomenon, and personal troubles. I was honored that others felt so comfortable sharing their private stories and journey. I enjoyed the 'Muggles' that stopped in just out of curiosity. I answered a lot of questions and explained my way of life to more than I can remember. It was an honor.

"However, people just stopping by doesn't pay the rent. . . . The day to day reality is a retail store can not run on Spirit alone. So much cash out in an attempt to make a living . . . [it was] too hard. [There are] easier ways to make money without having to deplete all my savings, run up tons of credit, and borrow to keep it going." Even in the months when she got plenty of business, she says, her private meditation and ritual time was sacrificed in an effort to make the money to keep the store going through its lean periods. "My holidays and full moons were becoming half-hearted - I was just too tired! You know the saying, all work and no play . . . well, after five years . . . it was hard, rewarding work, but I needed to get my life back in balance."   So what's the key to success in the world of Pagan retail?

"Principally it's an issue of inventory," says Kuhn, sharing the lessons she learned from hard experience. "It can be very hard to gauge the market when you're just getting started. Making a lot of mistakes at the beginning can break you at the end."

One mistake can be trying to compete with major chains and their buying power, which is why Aphrodite's Dove didn't carry many books. "I think when people tend to think of books [they think of the major chains]. We have a big-box bookstore right down the road. What books we get in are not readily available at Barnes and Noble."

Kuhn observes that most of their customers were people who had some interest in metaphysics, especially Feng Shui. "A lot of the stuff we sell is purification and protection. . . . When we have her in, Bast [statuary] goes fast, though I think that says more about the cat people in the Pagan community than anything else."

Even knowing what sells is only half the battle. With only a limited amount of money to spend on inventory, an item that sits on the shelf for months unsold means no funds to buy more of the things that do sell. 

Equally important is having a good base of customers, she says, and understanding what they want. "You have to have the right product mix, and you have to have the customers. If you lack either one, you get into deep trouble."

Blyth Foxmoore, owner of Gossamer Hawk in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, has been involved in running a variety of different Pagan stores since 1989. "I think I was born to do retail," she says. "When I was four years old, I was making things and selling them in my bedroom."

Even so, she admits that Pagan stores are a challenge. "It does involve some self sacrifice to keep a store going. The rewards are not necessarily going to be financial. You can make a living at it, but it's not going to bring riches."  Her key to success has as much to do with community as with what's in the store. "You have to have a little bit of everything," she says, agreeing with Kuhn's assessment that the right product mix is important. "You have to have people [behind the counter] who will work with your customers and are genuinely interested in what they're doing. You have to have live events. And you have to have an undying passion for what you're doing." 

Pagan stores are facing the same issues that many other independent retailers are facing, points out Ivo Dominguez, co-owner with Jim Welch of Bell, Book and Candle in Dover, Delaware. Independents buy at lower volumes, so they pay higher wholesale prices, and they have the same overhead costs - rent or mortgage on the space, utilities, insurance, salaries, taxes, and so on. Just being in retail is difficult, he says, and the Pagan community carries its own set of challenges. 

"Are pagans tough customers? Yes, they are, but I think it is mostly from a lack of understanding of the economics of minority communities" he says. "I think I can safely say that most Pagans do their buying from big chains and from online giants like Amazon. Perhaps it is a matter of convenience, the desire for quick satisfaction, or the truth that the shelves of a big corporation will always be more full. Unfortunately, this invests money in the big corporations rather than in the community. Minority communities only begin to thrive when they invest in themselves first."

"Pagan retailer versus specialty retailer is a big distinction," Bagosy points out. "Crunching the numbers a while ago, I estimated that there are between 1 and 3 million people in America that identify with something that can be broadly classed as 'Pagan.' That's between 0.3 and 1 percent of the population. So, locally, my target audience was small. Not generally a problem. The real problem lies in the fact that if I'm selling lawn ornaments, just about everybody has a lawn or knows someone who does. I can advertise 'Custom lawn ornaments!' and people will say, 'I've got a lawn, maybe I'll poke around there.' I can't advertise 'Pagan stuff!' and have most of the population say, 'Sure, I'll poke around and see what they have.' So, as niche markets go, Pagan stores are the niche of the niche. As we've seen in New Hope and South Street, even a constant press of foot traffic in a shoppy atmosphere isn't always enough to keep us afloat.

"Let's face it - most Pagans are lower middle-class people who typically have very little in the way of disposable income," he continues. "That doesn't make them very good customers. Enthusiastic, yes, but not typically the kind of people who are going to drop a mint at the register."

"A lot of [the financial issue] are the demographics of the Pagan community," agrees Foxmoore. "It tends to be the people who are not CEOs. They make other choices in their lives that are not in the mainstream, and it breeds a different level of economics."

One might be tempted to ask why the community needs Pagan stores. The Internet now allows Pagans to connect with others of their beliefs from around the globe, or to buy virtually anything online. Are physical stores just an artifact of a bygone age?

"I think that at some point, there's no substitute for face to face contact," says Foxmoore. "You have a level of trust sometimes when you're dealing with somebody on a face to face level." Gossamer Hawk is in an area where most of the Pagan population is scattered and practices as solitaries, by choice or by circumstance. For her customers, her store is an important crossroads where they can meet and experience community. In fact, many of her rituals and other programs were started by the request of customers who wanted opportunities to meet in a safe environment. "They can bring their kids here, and they don't have to worry about whether it'll be weird.

"I think that in some ways we can take lessons from the Christian community," she continues. "In many ways, they're more supportive of their own than the Pagan community is. By virtue of the fact that Pagans are a bunch of individual people who do things that are vaguely similar, a lot of times we forget that if we support each other's endeavors, that's where the successes are. . . . When a store as big and well-liked as Morgan's Cauldron closes, we need to think about the role these stores play." 

"Pagan stores are de facto community centers," says Dominguez. "There are an exceedingly small number of physical locations, such as temples, community centers, retreat centers, and pagan land bases throughout the country. Fact to face, hand to hand contact is the only way that real community is created and maintained. The online world is a good thing, but it is no substitute for this sort of contact. Festivals and gatherings are also a good thing, but don't build local community strength or health. . . . I believe that the Pagan community is at the crossroads, and the next steps are about more infrastructure in the real world. Pagan businesses are essential to the next steps. If they fail, then the community will be set back."

He sums it up this way:

"There is no substitute for holding a book in your hands and looking through it.

"There is no substitute for touching a crystal or an athame to know if it is the right one.

"There is no substitute for running into a friend and chatting."