Apparel retailers are seeing a new phenomenon — the impulse purchaser has become a special occasion shopper.With retail sales down since the beginning of the year, retailers say they have seen this distinct change in shopper’s habits, propelled by the effects of the recession.The year has been a difficult one so far for all retailers. The April Consumer Price Index showed a continuation of the trend, reporting that retail sales volume fell in all sectors during that month, except for motor vehicles and food.And in line with weakening sales, consumer demand continued to go down for clothing and footwear. As a result, sales revenue for apparel stores declined for the third consecutive month, and falling 2.8 percent below the sales level reached in April last year, the Department of Statistics said.For some retailers, this is an ongoing trend. One store owner wouldn’t comment on the record, but simply shook his head to express his disappointment.While store owners reported these results for the first third of the year, many are now detecting at least a small improvement in business with the approach of summer.At Lovit, a clothes and jewellery store which opened about a year ago in Windsor Place, store manager Margaret Butterworth said she has seen a definite downturn in impulse purchases.Instead: “People are buying for an occasion, a wedding or a party. Last year, it was spontaneous buying. People are more careful this year. We have changed our merchandising and have items at lower price points. We’ve mixed it up, so that if somebody wants to buy something that’s nice and also cheap, or something more pricey, we have it.“Everybody is saving money,” she said. “People are saying ‘let me think about it’. Everyone wants to be careful — and everyone says this year is worse than last year.”She said after they first opened they were busy throughout the day, but now they are quiet in the mornings and afternoons, although they do have traffic during the lunch hour. “We were new,” she said, explaining that people were curious about the new store. “But now it is quiet.”Candice Trott, the owner of another Windsor Place clothing emporium, Shannon’s, has had a comparable experience to their new neighbour. “It’s way down — it is worse than last year,” adding: “Don’t believe all the hype you hear (about an improvement).Like Lovit, they are seeing special occasion sales with people buying a new outfit for a social occasion. “Now, because of the summer, there a lot of parties,” she said. “But otherwise, Bermudians are not buying. They are buying for a function, and then we get a higher sales record,” she said.Ms Trott said her shop, which is a high fashion men’s clothing store that has been operating for 30 years, was feeling the absence of expatriate workers. “I find, quite honestly, a lot of the foreigners that we have sent off the Island — foreign, blue collar workers that supported the businesses — are no longer here.” She emphasised: “Particularly workers in blue-collar jobs. A lot of them supported a lot of businesses, and they are gone now.“On the other hand, tourists don’t buy — they only look. I sell more to locals and local residents, and these sales are down. Quite frankly, if everyone is honest, they will tell you the same thing.”She did, however, observe: “There’s a sense that sales are slowly pumping up because of the weather change — and the summer parties help a lot.”At Makin Waves, co-owner Douglas Patterson also pointed to the weather to explain his sales patterns. He explained that poor sales this spring were likely due to continuing cold temperatures.“Weather-wise it has been bad — there was no transition this year, so what happened was that we had a weak spring for shopping.“The 24 May public holiday jolted everyone into summer, because it was a holiday and since then it has been good. It is hot weather now, but that holiday was the jolt — it was the event that made people want summer.“We are a summer store — and I can only speak for us, but May was a very good month.”Shoe stores Perry Collection, and Perry Footwear and Collections prove the theory that high end retail is in a class of its own. Manager Anita Perry said her businesses have improved dramatically since last year. “There’s been a big difference,” she said.“As far as tourists and local people are spending, they are more optimistic and they are spending more. This is since the beginning of the year.”The two stores are carrying more merchandise this year, and Ms Perry explained: “We have upped the stock. We anticipated that this would be happening, and it seems to be proving out. The higher end is looking good.“The shoes we carry at the lower end — GUESS and BCBG, where the price points are very competitive, these brands are doing excellently. We are selling to people across the board, all walks of life,” she said.