I do lots of pawn shop hopping when I am in cities for business trips. By contrast to what I see elsewhere, the couple of shops here in St Marys are VERY poorly run. The merchandise is poor quality, not clean, very disorganized, poorly labeled, and very overpriced. The stores are not welcoming - one is always smoky and smelly, and the other is like walking into a flea market with stuff just piled in corners. Gloria's hours are impossible to understand; it's often closed even when the sign says it's during open hours.
I find this all rather odd, because the market here would easily support a quality pawn shop. Any military base in a healthy population center with nearby low income housing is prime market for pawn activity. I suspect a well-run Pawn America or similar chain shop would put the others out of business in a few months. But nobody seems to have the vision to open one.
One thing I suspect is that the proprietors of both shops don't understand the death spiral they're in: when you run a business like they do, people stop coming. No people, no sales. No sales, business dies.
