Business Spotlight: Christian County Couture

A side project between three friends has quickly grown into the Rudy of fashion – the little guy with a lot of drive.

Owner-operators Lindsay Jones, Robyn Abbott and Susan Williams discovered their knack for fashion on shopping trips to Fayetteville, Ark., and other destinations. “It seemed like whatever we brought back, people would ask where we got it and if we could get them one,” Abbott says.

The business partners became friends through conversations while waiting to pick up their kids from McBride Elementary School in southwest Springfield.

“We started in a laundry room – my laundry room,” says Jones, a former science teacher in West Virginia and Oklahoma.

Despite no prior business experience, the trio in June 2011 launched The Red Poppy Boutique LLC with $6,000 in inventory to sell at trunk shows and online. Today, monthly inventory purchases are about four times that initial amount, yielding around $36,000 in sales per month, Jones says, declining to disclose annual revenues.

The mom and pop shop resides in a quaint cottage-style home at 103 S. Delaware St. in Nixa, where it moved last month. Red Poppy had operated for 10 months just down the road at 512 E. Mount Vernon St.

The store’s interior is filled with colorful women’s clothing and accessories. Jewelry starts at $10 and dresses, which account for 70 percent of sales, run between $36 and $135.

The owners make quarterly trips to market in Dallas for their inventory and only stock about six of each item in various sizes.

“In town, you’re not going to find someone wearing the same dress, which sometimes happens at the mall stores,” says customer Stephanie Manning, a Mercy Hospital physician recruiter. “I always have something kind of unique.”

Jones, Abbott and Williams run the store themselves, allowing them to know their customers and cater to their interests.

Stephanie O’Connor, an information technology support and network services manager for City Utilities, shops Red Poppy for that reason.

“A lot of the time, they’ll order something in and they may think it’s perfect for you and let you know,” O’Connor says. “It’s that personal attention that you get.”

Among the owners’ challenges were adjusting their busy schedules during the company’s infancy to be available at the boutique more often than they predicted. They’ve since been able to find financial stability and a healthy cash flow in the business. The owners have signed a three-year lease for the 1,100-square-foot property owned by Debbie Wilson for $725 a month.

“We have one credit card, and we pay it off (on time),” Jones says. “Our cash-back rewards pay for our rent. We essentially have no overhead, no bank loan and have cash flow for our three pay checks.”

However, the recent back-to-school season wasn’t as active as they had hoped, illustrating that the boutique is not immune to the economy. A monthly survey conducted by BIGinsight showed 80 percent of people with school-aged children say the economy will impact their spending, and according to the National Retail Federation, the average person spent about $603 on back-to-school shopping this year.

Jones says Red Poppy sales slumped in mid-August but ended up flat compared to July, and the store posted gains during the Labor Day weekend.

Jones says roughly 20 percent of Red Poppy’s inventory is sold through online postings on its Facebook page, and the shop offers a 48-hour holding service that allows customers to pick up orders later at the store. The company also has shipped to Mississippi, Texas and Louisiana.

Jones credits social media for expansion opportunities, including a connection to a local jewelry artist. “It’s the modern day QVC,” she says.

Kelly Hamilton, a craft artist and owner of Tadpole jewelry, started working with Red Poppy in July for a September product launch. Hamilton has sold jewelry online since 2007 with the help of her daughter, Lyndsey, who manages her business primarily at Etsy.com.

Each Tadpole bracelet takes three to five days to complete, says Hamilton, who creates the design, hand draws it, burns or paints the design, and sands or polishes it depending on the piece.

Hamilton moved to Nixa from the Dallas area two years ago and found a familiar uptown feel at Red Poppy. “They pay attention to detail,” she says of the owners. “They try to bring cutting-edge trends and designs here locally, yet it’s a small-town feel. The bracelets work with that because they’re one-of-a-kind and individuals – kind of like the people that I think shop at the Poppy.”[[In-content Ad]]