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Business Owner’s Third Store Provides Space for Local Artisans April 21, 2022 (0 comments)
Barrie, Canada--Kimberly Harvey Chase has practiced the art of presenting her products to a wide audience. She does that with her years of experience in the handmade jewelry market.
Chase brought that experience to her own jewelry retail business — My Lil Gem — in New Market's Upper Canada Mall in 2020. Soon after, she expanded to a second location at Barrie's Georgian Mall.
Now, there's no stopping for Chase, who's on her way to opening a third store at Georgian Mall., reports a local news outlet.
But this outlet is different. Opening in Summer, the outlet collaborates with local artists selling handmade jewelry.
“With COVID and all the shows going away, I opened up a couple of stores because I had inventory,” she told the outlet. “Now that I’m restarting my show business, I thought, 'What’s a really good way I could help a lot of small businesses jump-start their business into retail and larger scales?' Not only is opening a store expensive but opening one in a mall is extra expensive. It will really help them build their brands by being in a mainstream mall.”
Chase is keen on giving local vendors the best experience by researching different collaborative models.
“I’ve designed the store, so it’s chopped up in a way that gives the vendors the space they need and they all chip in their piece of the rent individually," she explained in the news report. "That way, they’re only spending a couple hundred bucks instead of tens of thousands of dollars to try and open their own store."
Read more on Chase's new outlet and how she is adding her experience to it in the original news report.