From a garage-based web site to a multi-channel retailer

When Auntie’s Beads launched as a web site from Ron and Susie Henderson’s garage four years ago, the idea was to operate as a niche e-retailer with one small store. But the web has helped it develop three stores, with more on the way, Ron Henderson tells Internet Retailer.

Auntie’s Beads operates AuntiesBeads.com, which sells thousands of beads and related crafts for people who like to make jewelry. Soon after it launched in October 2000, customers began asking if the retailer also offered a store, says Henderson, who is the CEO as well as co-owner. So he matched up requests for stores with online sales activity by ZIP Codes to determine where to open brick-and-mortar locations.

So far, the stores have brought in about six times the amount of web sales in the local communities where they operate, though there’s no sign that the stores are taking away from online sales, Henderson says.

The web also supports his ability to staff the stores, he adds.

The first store opened in the retailer’s home town of Grapevine, Texas, a suburb of Dallas. But the second opened in Kansas City, KS; the third near Houston. In each case, including the store in Kansas, Henderson was able to find store managers through the web. Henderson invites site visitors to e-mail him via a Talk to the CEO feature at the bottom of every web page, and before he planned the Kansas City store he had already developed through e-mail a business relationship with the person who would become his Kansas City store manager.

“We hope to have at least three more stores next year,” Henderson says, adding that he also recently introduced a catalog after online customers requested one.