Step inside Two Sisters, Etc., and you’re engulfed in the smells of spice cookie and cinnamon bun candles, the sight of hundreds of gifts and handmade items and the sound of two women laughing.
Meg and Doug Freimarck and Sandi and Dan Nichols bought the country gift shop one weekend in October 2007, and the women were running it by the following Monday.
The women were friends for four years prior to becoming business partners, combining their backgrounds in retail ownership and art.
“We wanted a country gift shop – something that seems to be dying in this country,” said Meg Freimarck.
While the store maintains its name, location and general theme, when the couples bought it, she said, “It was really sparse. It was a skeleton store.”
Freimarck and Sandi Nichols spent the last year diversifying by developing sections within their 650-square-foot space for jewelry, candles, coffee and biscotti and theme gifts.
Part of that includes an original line of Meri the Fairy greeting cards, which the women developed after months of searching for cards to sell in the store.
“When we went to trade shows, we saw the same thing we see in every store,” Freimarck said.
“And everything we saw, we said, ‘We could make that,’ ” Nichols said.
With Freimarck designing the cards and Nichols writing the greetings, the first batch of 50 cards disappeared in 90 days.
Sales took off when a salesman agreed to rep the cards in June. Now with the work of two additional reps, Meri the Fairy products are sold at about 20 locations in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and California, and are on their way to Hawaii and a local casino.
The line is expanding to include new characters and products, such as magnets, coasters, T-shirts and notepads.
In October, Nichols and Freimarck invested in equipment from a closing commercial printing business to bring printing in-house. The equipment cost $2,000 – about the same as the monthly bill for outsourced printing.
The economy has slowed business “big time,” Nichols said, but the store has gained several new customers who used to visit similar stores that have closed.
The store averages about $2,000 in sales each month, with greeting cards bringing in about one-third of that.
Sales have been steady and customer counts rise monthly, with 92 buyers in September. Freimarck expects the store will become profitable in 2009.
Two Sisters, Etc.
Meg Freimarck and Sandi Nichols, owners
8914 N.E. St. Johns Road, Vancouver
360-546-3311
Charity Thompson can be reached at cthompson@vbjusa.com.
