Ridgefield store provides customers with unique home décor
Rare Earth Décor is a small retailer that has spent nearly a decade offering nature-based decorative items and furniture to Ridgefield shoppers.
The store, which opened in October 2001 at Tri-Mountain Business Plaza on S. 65th Avenue in Ridgefield, specializes in design accents, including wall hangings, paintings and light fixtures.
Rare Earth Décor's owner, Susie Pietz, is an experienced interior designer with a long list of projects under her belt in Southwest Washington, including work on the Park Plaza office buildings on Mill Plain Boulevard and, most recently, the Mission Hills Apartments in Vancouver.
Pietz has applied her knowledge of interior design to running Rare Earth Décor – and so far she says the business has treated her well.
According to Pietz, the store has survived thanks to its diverse client base, with men and women often stopping by to browse through items.
"We have an even spread here in terms of our shoppers," said Pietz's daughter, Kolby Collins, who also works at the store. "We get people from 80-year-old grandparents to 9-year-old kids looking for small items while their mom is getting coffee here in the plaza."
The broad scope of the store's clientele may have kept it afloat while other small retailers continue to struggle. According to Pietz, the store brought in approximately $130,000 in revenue for 2009 – not bad considering the store's average price of $50 for a wall hanging or $15 for a scented candle.
Many of the items sold at the store invoke the natural world, including a pink and blue frog made of stone, a metal bench with back supports shaped like dragonflies and a ceramic wall clock in the shape of a golden retriever.
Pietz cited her ability to occupy a specialized retail niche as one of the factors that has made her business successful.
"We have a lot more freedom than the average business," she said. "We don't have to buy the same stuff as everybody else. We can get unique products, which means we have less competition for our market."
Yet Rare Earth has still experienced the same troubles as many other small businesses in a tough economy.
"People don't want to spend as much money or buy as many things right now," Pietz said.
However, Pietz has no plans of letting those problems stand in the way of better times ahead.
"We're hopeful," she said. "We earned about $130,000 in revenue last year and we'd like to increase that to $160,000 for 2010. I don't know if that will happen… but it's what we're aiming for."
Regardless of the economic projections, the store is looking forward to continuing to serve the community, offering unique items customers might not find at larger stores.
"We're always looking for the unusual," Pietz said.
