One Interesting Day - Things Are Changing
As you know, we have a very robust relationship with Painted Tree Boutiques. At the moment we have 18 Painted Tree locations, and plans were to continue expanding.
Things changed a bit this week.
I doubt it will be a surprise to any of you that the economy right now is a mess. As a manufacturer/retailer we see this first hand. As part of the larger Painted Tree vendor community we also hear regularly how our peer vendors are doing. Trust me when I say this, the average consumer is suffering.
So on a single day this week we took three actions to help position our business for greater success in trying times.
- We renewed our lease in Moore, OK.
- We served notice of non-renewal on our lease in San Antonio, TX.
- We released our reservation for the new Painted Tree in Lewis Center, Ohio.
Moore has been a pleasant surprise. That store started out poorly, but has built itself into one of our best, most consistent locations. Even with retail in general struggling, Moore continues to perform well for us.
We love San Antonio. That decision was a tough one. The store just isn't performing to a level we need to justify the cost and effort of keeping it going. We will look for other options to serve that market. Maybe we'll get our products placed into other retailer through our wholesale efforts.
Lewis Center is a place we hope to eventually get into, but under the current conditions any expansion just seems like a bad idea. Once things turn around, and they will, we may revisit that store. It would be a homecoming for us, so we're eager to be there some day.
There are more changes coming as we look to streamline our retail operations. One thing I know for certain is that it will all look very different a year from now.
Greg