Page 258 - MM July2018

GENERAL GIFT/CHILDREN’S WORLD
Open only a year, Mingle is already fitting right in to the Florida Panhandle resort community it calls home. This gift, party, and home furnishings boutique is focused on all aspects of entertaining.
“Our tagline should be something like, ‘decorate and celebrate,’” says Rebecca
Cross, who owns the boutique with her husband. “We want people to celebrate the everyday moments in their home.”
While the Crosses are new to retail, they’re certainly no strangers to the industry or to entrepreneurism. Mingle
is their third business venture; previously they ran businesses on the manufacturing side, providing memory keeping and scrapbooking products to the hobby
and gift industry.
When they sold their most recent Utah- based business, they wanted to make
a new start in an area where they could potentially retire, and settled on the 30A
beach community in Florida. Owning
a store had always been of interest, and when they saw an unmet need in the area for affordable but unique party goods,
they jumped at the chance to meet that need by taking over a 1,800-square-foot storefront in a new shopping development.
Two sides to every story— wholesale and retail
Their transition from the supplier to the retailer side of the business has given the Crosses an interesting perspective, and not always in the way they anticipated.
“We thought we’d know everything there is about retail,” says Rebecca. “We know what it means to develop a product and help it sell through, and we thought we had a good feel for what consumers are looking for in the marketplace.”
But, she said, the couple needed to pivot and adjust their merchandise selection to cater to their local clientele.
As newcomers to the area, it took a few
tries to get their aesthetic just right. “When we first opened, we had a lot of
colorful things in here,” but they quickly realized that the local aesthetic was much more neutral, with a coastal beachy feel.
“Our store vibe now is a very Boho chic, with a little bit of a beach vibe mixed in,” says Rebecca. “When you walk into our store, you’ll see white walls, and a neutral color palette.”
But one aspect of retailing where Rebecca’s prior experience helped
is with pricing. “We’ve had a lot of experience with retail strategy in terms of margin and markup,” she says.
“So when it comes to pricing our products so they’ll be competitive, I feel like we’ve got that down to a science. People always walk into our store and comment on how affordable we are—we don’t try to price-gouge our customers.” >
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