'A little goes a long way': New York's candy stores sweeten economic gloom

With US consumer confidence at historic lows, it's a tough time for retailers across the country. But in and around New York City one niche sector is expanding – candy stores.

Mitchell Cohen, the third-generation owner of Economy Candy, on Manhattan's Lower East Side, has a theory – people will still buy candy (or sweets, as they are called in British English) – when economic times are difficult.

"The dollar isn't going as far these days," he says. "Inflation, uncertainty, all that, but there's always candy."

The business, the oldest sweet shop in New York, first opened its doors in 1937, towards the end of the Great Depression.

Initially it was a hat and shoe repair store, with candies sold from a cart out front as an extra earning stream.

But people couldn't afford to get things repaired, Cohen says. So his grandfather entirely pivoted to what was still selling – the affordable sweet treats. Eighty-nine years later, Economy Candy is still going strong.

While the most recent official data shows that US retail sales are still growing, up 4.9% in April from the same month last year, US consumer sentiment hit a new all-time low in May, according to one closely-watched report.

Echoing the thoughts of Mitchell Cohen, Kate Bolger says that as candy has a low price point "everyone can partake" despite people feeling the economic pinch.

Next month she is due to open The Village Confectionery, a candy store in Sleepy Hollow, the Hudson Valley town 28 miles north of New York City that is best known as being the setting of the 19th Century horror short story The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

Bolger, who previously worked as a movie producer, says that while consumers may be putting off making big, expensive purchases, they can still treat themselves to a piece of candy.

It is an extension of the so-called "lipstick effect" economic theory that was popularised in the early 2000s, whereby people who couldn't afford to buy something really expensive would buy a little luxury item instead.

Back in New York City, an upmarket candy store company called BonBon now has five shops across Manhattan and Brooklyn, and another in the Hamptons on Long Island that opened last summer.