Hardware Retailing The Industry's Source for Insights and Information
When the Bowman family took over Prickly Pear Farm & Home in the small town of Kinsley, Kansas, in 2022, Ellie Bowman, the current owner and manager, and her family knew changes had to be made after seeing how the business had been run. From product selection to organization, Bowman wanted to make big changes in order to be successful.
“After taking over, we realized the store needed a face-lift and better organization because much of the layout didn’t make sense,” Bowman says.
Bowman’s vision of the store was to become more than a community lumberyard—she wanted it to become the place to go for housewares.
The Right Products
Part of the face-lift included expanding the product offerings, as Bowman had an opportunity fall into her lap when a local housewares store in Kinsley announced it was closing. Bowman used this opportunity to buy the rest of what the. owner was selling at their shop, including baking mixes, dips, soaps, lotions and other housewares items.
Since selling through that initial stock purchased from the housewares store owner, Bowman has expanded on what her store offers. Some of her biggest sellers have become pepper jellies, dips and seasonings.
One struggle Bowman has in her housewares category is finding new items and making sure they’re profitable. Fortunately, when she took over the store and bought the remaining supply of the housewares store that was closing, that owner put Bowman in contact with different vendors. The owner also introduced Bowman to Faire, an app that connects local business owners with vendors for a variety of products, including housewares.
“The app essentially does all of the middleman work for me and brings it all onto the app so I can get almost anything related to housewares through Faire,” Bowman says.
Bowman says the housewares category is a guessing game, but focusing on selling products she is passionate about has been one of the best pieces of advice she’s received.
“If you like and use a product, you’re going to be able to sell it,” Bowman says. “But if you don’t know much about a product and you’re not passionate about it, you won’t have much success in selling it.”
Getting the Word Out
Being located in a small, rural community has both challenges and opportunities. While the Kinsley community has been supportive of the store’s new offerings, growing the housewares department into what it is today required some creativity.
“The hardest aspect of starting out was getting people who thought of us as just a lumberyard to know what all we offer now,” Bowman says. One way Bowman has garnered attention is through her in-store events, which she promotes on social media.
“Our tasting events always bring people in,” she says. “That’s when products really fly off the shelves.”
Bowman says organizing these events by herself or in collaboration with her local chamber of commerce gives potential customers a reason to come into her store.
In addition to in-store events, the store regularly posts on social media to market its unique products and customer events.
“Posting on social media is my main form of marketing right now,” Bowman says. “It’s a learning curve, but it’s been essential for getting the word out.”
While her time owning her store hasn’t been without its challenges, Bowman says her sales have far exceeded her initial expectations.
“Since we took over, we’ve doubled what we projected our sales to be, which is amazing,” Bowman says. “Our community is small, but I’ve been so thankful.”
