Three women's boutique businesses closing in Rapid City - Rapid City Journal |
| Three women's boutique businesses closing in Rapid City - Rapid City Journal Posted: 21 Jan 2020 03:30 AM PST   Amy Lockhart looked over the back storage area of her store, Serendipity, on Friday as she begins planning to close it.  Jennifer Nielsen talks on the phone with a customer on Friday about selling stools that were used as fixtures at her store, Untamed, in Rapid City.  A bench in the store S&CO has been sold prior to the store closing in Rapid City on Friday. Three women's clothing and accessories boutiques located within three blocks in downtown Rapid City have closed or will in the coming days. The owners of Serendipity Street Boutique at 619 Main St., Untamed Accessories & Clothing at 617 Main St., and S & Co. Boutique at 910 Main St. all shared common factors, but also cited their own reasons for ending their retail ventures. The timing was mostly coincidental. Untamed owner Jennifer Nielsen said she knew her retail neighbor and close friend, Amy Lockhart of Serendipity, was considering closing about the same time she made her own decision to take another job and close her store. Sami Dietrich posted her decision to close S & Co., without knowing that Lockhart and Nielsen had announced the beginning of their clearance sales. "It was like, oh, did you know that these other two were going out of business too?" Dietrich said. "Then I realized they had announced it before I did," she said. "It was a shock to me." Serendipity Street Boutique Lockhart said her Serendipity Street Boutique had its best year in 2018. However, 2019 was by far the worst of her seven years in business, she said. "It's very odd that you would have your best and worst year back-to-back," she said. Lockhart said a number of factors contributed to a dramatic dip in sales from one year to the next, including an extended winter and last summer's downtown street construction. Mostly, she points to the growth of online shopping, its one-click convenience often cited as a reason for the closure of major big-box retail chains and small-town merchants alike. "I know it's a convenience, but we're losing our downtown and that's really sad," Lockhart said. "We can just see it on our numbers." However, Lockhart discounts any negative affect from last's year's installation of downtown parking meters. "I think it opened streets up," she said. "People can actually park downtown now instead of driving around block after block and finding nothing." Lockhart said she plans to close Serendipity by the end of February. To say she has mixed emotions about ending the seven-year retail run is an understatement. "It's bittersweet. I'm definitely going to miss my customers," she said, pausing to compose herself. "I've made a lot of friends." She is also looking forward to her next full-time job, if you will. "It's 2020. New vision. I'm going to go back to being a mom. I've got kids that need me," she said. Untamed Accessories Nielsen opened Untamed Accessories & Clothing seven years ago at 524 7th St., then moved to 617 Main St. in February 2015. While not planned that way, she announced her impending store closure the same day as Lockhart did. Nielsen, originally from Brandon, has a background in banking, real estate and customer service. She decided to close her store so she could take her career in a completely different direction from retail ownership. Saturday, Jan. 18, was the last day for Untamed. She started a new job with a sanitation company Monday. Nielsen echoed Lockhart's sentiments on the installation of downtown parking meters, saying the meters had made it easier for he customers to find open spaces with other tenants from her building and other downtown employees no longer using them. She also doesn't believe there is an oversaturation of similar boutique-style shops downtown. "Of course, we're going to carry similar items, that's just inevitable. I think we did a really good job of forging our own way with things that would set us apart," she said. Having several such businesses creates foot traffic, she said. "Hopefully, people are going to come and visit us all," she said. Nielsen said one of the more frustrating aspects of online shopping was customers who would try on an article of clothing in her store, but then admit they would be making the actual purchase online. "That, to me, is crazy," Nielsen said. "You just spent gas money to come down here, why wouldn't you support local? I wish people would understand what small businesses do for our town." S & Co. Boutique Dietrich launched her S & Co. Boutique as an online entity in 2015, while finishing her business degree at Black Hills State University in Spearfish. Success in the cyber sales world led her to open a storefront at 910 Main St. next to Essence of Coffee in 2017. "Having both the storefront and the online, I didn't have to work other jobs," Dietrich said. "It was finally my only career." Dietrich said the online presence bolstered her business, but the number of similar stores in a concentrated area of downtown may have contributed to a downturn in overall sales. "It's a very saturated market in general for a small town," she said. "It's hard to keep up with that." Dietrich, soon to celebrate her 26th birthday, still said she was pleased with her business, but noted her passion for it was waning. "I was personally changing a little bit," she said. "If my whole heart and soul weren't 100 percent in it anymore, it just didn't seem worth it to me." Customers have expressed their sympathy since she announced her closing date, set for Jan. 25, but she is upbeat. She already has a new job lined up. "I'm like, no, this is good for me. This has been a very good run. I'm so glad I did it. I learned so much. In my eyes it was successful. I need to take what I learned and move on to the next step," she said.  |
| Posted: 21 Jan 2020 06:05 AM PST This is the new Columbia-area Retail weekly column that will be posted on Tuesday mornings at postandcourier.com. Do you know of an opening, expansion or closing that should be included? Write to mfitts@postandcourier.com. COLUMBIA — When Sarah Rama opened her children's clothing store, Duck Duck Goose on the Devine Street retail corridor in August, she actually was unsure that the street's retail corridor was the right place for her specialty store. Now her boutique has moved down the street to larger space at 2800 Devine St., where she thinks the additional residential growth nearby only can help her business. Duck Duck Goose opened Friday in its new location in the Forum Shopping Center along Devine, which gives the business the room it needs, Rama said. The new location gives her business about 3,500 square feet, a necessary upgrade from about 1,800 feet to help the company enjoys strong sales from both online and in-store customers. "To find double the space three doors down, we had to hop on the opportunity," Rama said.  Rama sees the nearby growth as another reason that Devine Street makes more sense than ever for her store. Just across the street, about 150 apartments or condos are being built in two projects. Rama sees that as a natural boost for her business, which already gets abundant walk-in business from Shandon and other nearby areas, she said. Duck Duck Goose doesn't necessarily get a big boost from the other high-end clothing retailers that are thriving on Devine Street, Rama said. Children's clothing is a special destination purchase for consumers, not an impulse buy, Rama said. But Devine Street seems to be a winning spot for local retail. "I love being amongst small businesses that are locally owned," she said. Other retailers are moving to new spaces along Devine Street. Mainstream Boutique, a women's clothing store, will move a few blocks to a shop space next to Duck Duck Goose, with the move expected to be complete by late February or early March.  Both stores are splitting up space that formerly belonged to retailer Devine Robin, which closed late in 2018. Splitting the site gives the shops the right fit on space, as many small retailers these days are hesitant to move to a store with a huge physical footprint, said Jennifer Suber, marketing coordinator for the Devine Street Association. Women's clothing boutique LaRoque also is moving, one block down to expanded space at 2816 Devine Street, the space Duck Duck Goose is vacating. The target date for that move to be completed is mid-March, Suber said. New plan for Southern PotterySouthern Pottery Studio and Gallery, which closed in September at 3105 Devine St. after 16 years in business, is about to find a new form in a new part of town. The business was set to reopen in the Cottontown neighborhood on Monday at 2238 Sumter St., according to owner Debra Green. Southern Pottery now will focus more on teaching classes and not be open regularly as a retail location. Consumers have become more interested in an experience than just shopping for an object, according to Green. "Students that we teach would rather make their own art!" Green wrote in an email. Mousetrap slams shutThe Mousetrap, the longtime neighborhood eatery and bar amid the offices of Middleburg Plaza, announced on Jan. 13 that it is closed. "Friends of The Mousetrap, I'm very sorry to say that due to circumstances beyond our control, the Mouse Trap has closed," a Facebook post on its page read. This is the second closure for the restaurant just off Forest Drive, which has been in business in Columbia since the late 1970s. It closed in May 2018, later to reopen under new ownership. David Clarey contributed to this report. Do you know of a retail business in the Midlands that is opening, closing or expanding? Reach Mike Fitts at mfitts@postandcourier.com.  |
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