August/September 2010

INDUSTRY

NEWSLETTER

2010

SGN Newsletter

SPONSORS

Wholesale Fashion Jewelry by Cool Jewels

ARCHIVES

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

he Round Barn Shoppe in Piermont, N.H., is a craft and gift shop that also sells its own homemade fudge and ice cream. The structure is a 16-sided round barn built in 1996, a post and beam structure made from hemlock with a pine finish. It is across the street from a dairy barn built in 1906, says Ramona Schmid, owner.

"It’s mostly an open floor plan. We have shelves from the outside walls to the center,” she says of this two-story shop where Christmas, knitted goods and artwork are upstairs. The store has 300 crafters signed up to bring in merchandise, and about 150 of them are active, providing the store with such items as knitted crafts, ceramics, wood items, jewelry and other goods. Schmid’s husband George makes the ice cream and fudge and is in charge of bringing in the store’s large selection of other food items, including Amish jams, jellies, relishes and pickles and cheeses from Vermont and New Hampshire.

The store also sells candles, ceramics, artwork, quilts, jackets and hats, a few toys, cedar boxes, picture frames, glass work, birdhouses and other items. “It’s a big building and it’s full,” she says.

Although it’s hard to pinpoint best-selling items, Schmid says: “We do sell a lot of food products. We do sell a lot of the fudge that George makes here. We also have a yearround Christmas shop. We have Christmas cards from Leanin’ Tree and we keep them out year-round. We get tourists who come through once and they buy the Christmas things, including the cards.”

Schmid sets up displays by theme, and some of the sections include pets, outdoors, ceramics and jackets. “We just place the things where we want them,” she says.

In the past, Calef’s County Store Gift Shop in Barrington, N.H., was stuffed with merchandise. But Lindy Horton, who owns the store with her husband Cleve, has used her substantial talents as a merchandiser to bring organization to chaos.

“My wife is a master merchandiser. She loves merchandising and she loves change,” Cleve Horton says. Displays in the store, and in the Horton’s other outlet, Calef’s Country Store, are kept fresh and rotated every six to eight weeks.

Cleve and Lindy bought the stores eight years ago. The country store, which celebrated its 135th anniversary in 2004, sells primarily specialty, convenience and deli foods, but also cross merchandises with gifts. Likewise, the gift shop also sells some food items.

At the gift store, Cleve Horton says, “We do a fairly large business in kitchen gadgets. We also stock quite a few parts for oil lamps.” The store also sells Yankee Candles, greeting cards, souvenir items and plush. Although Horton says they have maintained the role of the country store as a local hub for the small town of Barrington, he and his wife also reach out to tourists through marketing efforts. “Sometimes it makes for a very delicate balance,” he says.

Best selling in the gift store are the Yankee candles. And for a number of years, the couple had success with a talking plush loon. “It was kind of a goofy item, but it sold very well,” he says. So well, in fact, that Horton was ordering it by the gross instead of by the dozen.

A basket maker at The Ozark Folk Center, Mountain View, Ark. Craftspeople offer demonstrations at the center, and some of their wares are available for purchase in the center's gift shop.

The Ozark Folk Center Home Spun Gift Shop in Mountain View, Ark. is a large, seasonal, folk center shop in a state park that draws mainly tourists. The store stocks books, T-shirts, baskets, music, pottery and canned goods. Wanda Baird, gift shop manager, says best selling are craft books, CDs and T-shirts. “The books, part of that is that we have a large herb garden here and people buy herb books. The CDs, we have performances here in the evenings. And everybody can use a T-shirt,” Baird says of sales trends at the store.

T-shirts come in at least 30 designs and are name-dropped. “The last thing that really went well was a sort of purple or orchid tie dye,” she explains. The shop has a country, yesteryear look, as the site covers from 1841 to 1941. In fact, musicians – the facility hosts both locals and visiting celebrities – focus on music up to 1941. And about 60 costumed craftspeople provide demonstrations during the season, offering about 22 demonstrations a day in soap, broom, doll and dress making, along with wood working and the skills of the blacksmith. Many of these crafts are available for sale in the gift shop.

“Right now I have a big table of Christmas candles, displays are by theme,” she says of display trends. “I have one big area that I have music books with CDs. I have a kitchen area, we have pottery, jellies, mustards, syrups, chocolate gravy mix, potholders, baskets, those kind of things.”

To keep displays inviting at the White Acres Campground and Gifts in Bardstown, Ky., “I use antique pieces of furniture and my imagination,” says Doris White, owner.

White owns the facility with her husband Aaron. In the gift store she sells glassware, dolls, antiques, jams, jellies and some furniture. But best selling are stuffed animals and toys. “I have a lot of children visit,” she says.

At Christmas in Kentucky in La Grange, Ky., best sellers for owner Linda Foster are Christmas ornaments. “I have a vendor list of 128 different manufacturers,” she explains. This 1,500 square foot store opened in 1993. “La Grange is a destination stop, we’re an historic town,” she says. “I am Christmas, giftware, home décor. …I carry some primitives, but the majority of it is fancier, high end décor.”

Foster worked in display for AmericasMart between 1983 and 1991, and honed her merchandising skills there. Her store is an 1840 structure, a historic home, with such features as restored fireplaces, woodwork and floors. Foster doesn’t use large fixtures, instead striving for the look of a house overdecorated for Christmas, including 13 or 14 artificial trees. In addition to this unique backdrop, Foster stocks items, such as the ornaments, which can’t be found in other stores.

An exterior view of Bubba O’Leary's General Store in downtown Chimney Rock, N.C. The store sells such country store favorites as penny candy and homemade preserves and relishes along with many other items.

Bubba O’Leary’s General Store in Chimney Rock, N.C. is a 1,100 square foot general store that opened in 1992. Peter O’Leary, owner, also runs a 2,500- square-foot outfitters clothing store across the street. Both shops have a mountain and country feel and 99 percent of the stores’ business is tourism-related.

In the general store, the best selling items are T-shirts and private label jams and jellies. “We also sell quite a few kitchen gadgets, offbeat kitchen gadgets. And candy, candy is a real big seller,” O’Leary says. Tshirts with the store’s logo are best sellers, and shirts that say Chimney Rock, N.C. and Lake Lure also generate interest. “If we can find a design that we like and namedrop it, it becomes an instant souvenir,” he says.

“We try to follow that same theme of an old timey general store. We try to not use manufacturers’ displays. We use old store displays, antiques, anything that we can to promote” an old fashioned feel, he says. Some shelves are built new, but they also have an old look. “We’re trying to create the right atmosphere, so when people came in they are not completely slipping back in time, but they have that flavor,” he explains.

The clothing store carries outdoor-related sportswear from Columbia Sportswear, Woolrich, Royal Robbins and North Face and also hiking boots and casual shoes. “The sportswear in general is the really big seller,” he says.

At Nature’s Beautiful Gifts in St. Louis, Mo., owners Sue and Andrew Auer bring their love of the ocean and their interest in cut rocks to life. The pair have been in business for 12 years selling seashells, coral, rocks, gems, minerals, dolphin figurines, sea items, paperweights, jewelry, amethyst goods, geodes, thunder eggs and other items, says Sue Auer.

The best selling items are seashells, dolphin figurines and rocks and minerals. “We have the most shells in this area. The same with the dolphins, we have a large amount of dolphins and our rocks are just beautiful,” she explains.

Nell Edinger has owned the Country Cottage in Troy, Mo. for seven years, and on Sept. 13, 2004, she opened a brand new 2,500 square foot store at the same location.

Edinger does well with items from Yankee Candles, Boyd’s Bears, Dept. 56, Heritage Lace and Williraye Studios, which makes a primitive line of carvings and decorative folk art. She also sells the work of 37 local craftsmen, including wood items and folk art paintings, which are all 100 percent handmade. These items are on display throughout the store. “It sells better if we can display it with whatever it coordinates with,” she says.

The store is decorated with old oak barnwood and also features handmade display cabinets fashioned from the windows of homes. The man who salvages the windows from demolition sites

A view of the creative displays at the Country Cottage. The shop does well with items from Yankee Candles, Boyd's Bears, Dept. 56, Heritage Lace, Williraye Studios and others.

adds hinges and the window becomes a door. “You’d almost have to see it to believe it,” Edinger says. “…We’re very country. We’ve even got an old antique wood ironing board with centerpieces, candles lamps and potpourri balls sitting on it.”

Best selling for Edinger are Yankee Candles and Boyd’s Bears. “I personally think it’s Yankee’s design in how they pour their candles. I would say Yankee Candles are the number one candle in the country. It is our top seller in the store,” Edinger says. The company’s wax and hot oil mixing method is the key to its success, she adds. “You have oil all the way down in your jar and you have scent no matter how long you burn your candle, because you have the oil on the bottom too.”

“But in our new shop we’ve found everything is selling,” she adds. And the store takes between eight and 10 special orders a day for everything from artificial flower arrangements to hand carved antique shelving replicas.