Time and money secrets of Nellie Dunn's success

by Melissa Wilson

SBJ Staff

The purveyors of Nellie Dunn's Used Furniture and Antiques, 211 E. Commercial, have some advice for those wanting to open a store such as theirs: "Get ready to donate at least three years of your life to the business," said co-owner Randy Ebrite.

Investments of both time and money by Ebrite, co-owner Michael Cochran, and Manager Debbie Bunch, seem to be the secret of Nellie's success. "It was three years before we even started drawing a very modest salary," Cochran said. "We put every bit of money we got back into it to increase our inventory and make improvements."

Ebrite and Cochran, who are cousins and have been business partners since opening Nellie Dunn's on Commercial Street in 1987, said one of the challenges of opening a vintage store was first finding the unique items Nellie's is known for.

"Anybody can fill up a space with mundane junk, but our inventory is almost a work of art," Cochran said. "We used to have to go out and find (inventory) at auctions and other stores around Springfield, but now we're well enough known as estate buyers, used-furniture buyers and vintage clothing buyers that a good percentage of our inventory comes to us."

Two large estate purchases in the first year of Nellie's inception and merchandise the two already owned provided Cochran and Ebrite with the inventory to open. Cochran said he and Ebrite attended estate sales and auctions together, and whoever had the cash in his pocket or checking account would buy items for Nellie's and eventually be reimbursed by the store.

"It wasn't like we both put in $10,000 apiece to start with ... it wasn't anything as simple as that. We would both go to an auction and keep track of what we bought. We both contributed what we could when we could," Cochran said. "That's one of the reasons we survived. If we had approached this business in the traditional sense by getting a loan and starting right out with a heavy debt load to service, we couldn't have made it."

Ebrite said Nellie Dunn's never officially opened. "We were stocking the store one afternoon and left the door unlocked, and someone walked in," Ebrite said.

The two owners and Bunch who has a background as a seamstress and clothing designer and whom Ebrite and Cochran credit with responsibility for Nellie's extensive collection of vintage clothing remember a time in Nellie's past when few cars drove up and down Commercial Street and storefronts were empty.

"There were points in time when there were two cars on the street