Having some of our handmade items being sold in local stores or boutiques is not something I ever thought would happen to us but it has over the past year since we restarted our craft side hustle! Our first location is The Elevated Collective in Huntington, Indiana which is about a 40 minute drive for us to get to. It is an absolutely beautiful store with a wide variety of handmade items for sale in the historic part of town. The owners have a great sense of style and display options for the vendors. They are also big on supporting local small businesses especially in the historic shopping part of Huntington.
Our second location is Well Made & More in Huntertown, Indiana. This little store is a volunteer run shop with a good variety of crafts for purchase. It's in a strip mall right off the highway so it has some funky vibes. They focus on having lots of sales and online marketing to drive customers to Huntertown and the stores along this little strip mall. We sell at a monthly Community Market right down the block from this store from May through September. We have been getting so many comments that shoppers recognize our products at this market from shopping at Well Made & More. We are getting known!
The Vessel Refillery in Fort Wayne, Indiana has a very small selection of our handmade goodies too. This beautiful store relocated to a busier part of the north side of Fort Wayne recently. The owner has a beautiful classic look that is very relaxing to shop in. It reminds me of The Elevated Collective in many ways and was the one who first suggested we list our products with her and at The EC. So far, it has worked out well for us at both locations. The Vessel Refillery focuses on encouraging shoppers to bring in or reuse glass bottles and jars to fill with things for the home such as cleaners, lotions, shampoos, laundry, etc. There is also a small boutique of gently used style clothing that you will not find anywhere else. It is a great concept. I have made my own laundry detergent since the 1990's and never thought about putting it in jars for sale like she does at this store. We had a second Fort Wayne shop location but left that after disappointing sales. We won't talk about that experience but there were some good lessons there.
This latest location, our 4th one , is back in Huntington, Indiana. The first store that we listed our products in, The Elevated Collective, has just celebrated being in business one full year! They made an agreement with a coffee shop a few months ago that was opening up to stock some of the products from The Elevated Collective in the coffee shop for patrons to purchase. I thought it would be like a book shelf or a table full of a handful of products like I have seen in other coffee shops. Nope. This location took what must have been the bank managers front window office and created a tiny store inside the coffee shop! It is adorable and is chock full of a good selection of different vendors creations from The Elevated Collective which is located about 2 blocks away. They call it the Vault Finds and I highly approve of it. Our things are much easier to see and pick up than our top shelf at The EC. My hope is that this little coffee shop gets lots of business from the locals who will take the time to shop for Vault Finds there.
Fingers crossed.
Now to carve out the time to make more goodies to sell. It's July which means I need to start planning for the holidays. Weird.