World Over to close due to low sales

BANGOR – After 15 years in business, World Over Imports, a home furnishing store on Hogan Road, will close, probably by late summer.

In January, the World Over Imports in Portland shut its doors, and now the Bangor store has announced its closure.

The owner of the stores, Wyatt Garfield of Cape Elizabeth, worked in the Portland store and that location closed mainly because Garfield wanted to retire, said Julie Baker Leaden, the Bangor store manager. The Bangor store’s closure was based on economics, she said.

“We held on for a while and we just got to a point where people are not buying luxury items; they are saving their money for heating oil or gasoline,” Baker Leaden said.

World Over Imports opened its 312 Hogan Road location in September 1993, she said. The store employs eight people, three of whom have worked at the store for more than 10 years.

The third and final store in Lewiston will remain open.

The Bangor store’s location near the mall and big box stores did not help sales, Baker Leaden said. Many customers are choosing to get similar products at discount chains rather than buying from local Maine companies, she said.

Bangor’s store is offering 25 percent off all shelf products and 25 percent to 50 percent off all furniture. The sale will continue through the summer, until the inventory is gone, Baker Leaden said.

“We’re just not seeing the daily transactions, or the dollar amount in sales,” she said. “We’ve been slipping, not for the past six months, but for the past 24 months or so.”

trobbins@bangordailynews.net

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