Scaling a Gift Shop in NYC - Annie's Blue Ribbon General Store with Ann Cantrell

Alan Li (00:01) Today's guest, Anne Cantrell, is the founder of Annie's Blue Ribbon General Store, a neighborhood gift shop in Park Slope, Brooklyn that's been around for 18 years. Previously, Anne spent a decade in fashion product development at Ralph Lauren, Coach, and Brooks Brothers. On the side, she would work on her own business, building binders full of ideas and vendor notes before finally taking the leap. In 2007, she opened her first 500 square foot location that has since grown into a larger space with a basement and backyard.

In this episode, we dive into how Anne financed the launch with the $150,000 home equity loan, how she curates and selects each item to sell, and how to break into online sales starting off as a brick and mortar store. We also dive into how Anne was able to bounce back from COVID and the benefits of deeply integrating with your community. This is a great episode for anyone interested in the realities of opening and running an independent gift store.

Alan Li (00:59) Welcome to opening soon, a podcast where we interview retail founders about how they started and run their brick and mortar businesses. I'm your host, Alan Li, I run Signs and Mirrors where we make beautiful signs and furniture for retail stores. I also help run FotoLab a self-portrait studio with locations in New York city and Houston.

Alan Li (01:19) And thanks so much for joining the Opening Soon podcast.

Ann Cantrell (01:22) ⁓ Ellen, thanks so much for having me. I'm looking forward to our conversation.

Alan Li (01:26) Yeah, me

too. ⁓ So before we dive into Blue Ribbon General Store, I'd love to hear a little bit more about you. What were you doing before and what made you interested in starting a brick and mortar business?

Ann Cantrell (01:38) Yes, I worked in the fashion industry for a long time, mostly in product development at brands like Ralph Lauren, Coach, and Brooks Brothers. But really the whole time I was working in corporate, from day one I knew that I wanted to have my own business and I was running different business plans. They all were more or less the same about this idea of the blue ribbon being the best that life has to offer, some sort of community general store shop. And so I just really needed to...

Save my money, work my way through corporate and get some experience and then life experience as well And so finally after about 12 years I open up my shop

Alan Li (02:19) Okay,

cool. ⁓ So when you were in fashion, ⁓ what were you doing specifically in there and were there any transferable skills to opening and starting your own business?

Ann Cantrell (02:30) Yes, so I worked in product development, was, which is really taking ⁓ a 2D sketch from a designer and making it into a 3D product and commercializing the product in the process. So making sure that we, it comes in at a margin that makes sense for us, like the fabrics, the trims, everything, we're working with a factory that makes sense for what we're trying to produce. So those were transferable skills in the sense of problem solving, for sure. Product development is all about like, we just have to get it

done and figure it out. But also things like running a meeting and how to talk to vendors and things like that were all really things that I think helped set me up for success ⁓ as a small business owner.

Alan Li (03:14) Cool.

So I know that you said you were working for about 12 years before you started, but you had the business plan ideas. Was this in the last couple of years or how long did it take from, hey, think I should start a general store, a gift shop to actually getting started?

Ann Cantrell (03:30) Yes, well, I say it was like 10 years, but honestly, Alan, it was literally from the first day of working in corporate. knew, I mean, I was really like, I always enjoyed the people that I work with, but I really like never loved my jobs, but I learned a lot from them. I put in a lot of time and effort to be like the best employee that I can be, but I was always like working on my business plans on the side. And whenever I would like quit a job,

Alan Li (03:37) Really? Wow.

Ann Cantrell (04:00) My mom, well, whenever I wanted to quit my job, my mom would be like, you need a better paying job. You know how parents are, like you gotta pay the bills. ⁓ so I, but I, I was just very methodical about it. I would visit stores that I loved. I documented a lot of things. I had these binders of like products and things that I liked and even fixtures. And I would move them from apartment to apartment. My boyfriend, now husband, was like, what is all that? I'm like, that's my master plan.

Alan Li (04:05) Yeah. Yep. Yep.

Wow.

Ann Cantrell (04:30) ⁓ I'm always like now you can do this on Pinterest or like on Instagram. It's like so much easier now I actually have like actual binders doing it all but ⁓ And anytime someone would get me a gift I would that I loved I would like try to find out who was I was visiting shows and just thinking about it that whole time, but You might be like why didn't you act faster? But I really felt like I needed that confidence that comes from like a corporate job

Alan Li (04:30) Ha

Ann Cantrell (05:00) and doing a really ⁓ good job in terms of getting a good salary and even just honestly money too. It takes a lot of money to open up a business and I did it all myself and so... ⁓

putting in that time, paying my dues really helped pull that all together. I wrote like, I don't even know, 50 versions of a business plan, something like that.

Alan Li (05:23) Okay.

wow.

Okay. Well, let's dive into that. ⁓ you you have many different versions of the business plan. You've been doing it, you know, since, you you started your first day in corporate. ⁓ What were the actual steps that you took after you quit your job to opening your store?

Ann Cantrell (05:47) Okay, so before that though, I already had incorporated my business in New York. I full flashed out business plans. I had already started talking to banks before I left my corporate job. ⁓

Alan Li (05:54) Hmm.

Okay, so just to get a sense of the

timeline, what about what time frame or what year was this?

Ann Cantrell (06:08) Yes, this is 2006. 2006 and I...

Alan Li (06:11) 2006, okay.

Ann Cantrell (06:15) As you can imagine, always tell people that I think the hardest thing was quitting my job, quitting a corporate job. ⁓ Not only did I have a good salary, but they tried to keep me by giving me golden handcuffs where they give you stock options if you stay for three years. I mean, that was a very hard thing to do. also left, right was I was getting my bonus, which was intentional, so I could have some of that money to live off of. I waited until a bonus time. And my boyfriend, now husband,

Alan Li (06:21) Yeah.

Yeah.

Ann Cantrell (06:45) was like, he better cash that check. And I was like, I'm cashing the check. And then I had a moment, and then I quit my job. But no, I was very prepared. It still took me a year until I opened. But I was very prepared in terms of, at least I thought I was really prepared. I could have even been more prepared. But I was very prepared. Like I said, I had already filed for my...

LLC, ⁓ all of those different steps before I even left. ⁓

Also, another job had tried to get me to come back, hire me back. And I was like, okay, no, I am starting my own business, but I do need extra money. I need to pay my bills. So I did freelancing for about a year ⁓ until just to get all my other ducks in a row. Find a place, get all the merchandise, secure a loan. This was pre-financial meltdown times, and it's still

Alan Li (07:24) Ha

Ann Cantrell (07:47) which I like let's say that's 2008 was a financial meltdown so it was still hard I can get into more of that if you're interested but to get some funding but that took me about you know eight months to get as well and so that whole time I was still just hustling working at that old position and then I would ⁓

also work on my business plans, but I was like very directed and then I wanted to open up by October of 2007, which is pretty much what I did.

Alan Li (08:22) Okay. ⁓ I know a lot of entrepreneurs, especially in the beginning, they have, you know, side jobs or contracts to be able to supplement because it is very expensive to.

Ann Cantrell (08:31) Yeah,

I did it. I still hustled at that job that tried to hire me. I still hustle there.

For about like two or three years. I would probably still be there if they like, you know would let me but because it was I'd love being in the industry is really Fascinating but I would work we were closed on Mondays like even after I was open we were closed on Monday so I would go one to five there and Work on like lab dips and you know help with the business and cover someone's maternity leave and then I would also come 730 to 1030 on Thursday mornings and then hustle back to Brooklyn for my

or to open at 11. And that was, you know, like I said, I funded everything, you know. Yeah, exactly.

Alan Li (09:10) my gosh.

That's what it takes.

So talk to me a little bit about how much that loan was. How much do you need to open up your first space?

Ann Cantrell (09:24) Yes, I took out $150,000 loan and I actually did it nicely on my mom's, my mother, my father passed away a long time ago, my mother passed away now as well, but my mother's apartment, I got like a home equity loan on her apartment. And so it took a while for me to get on the.

deed, guess it was, and to be approved by the building and then to actually get the loan. And so that's what took like the eight months. And I'm saying this ⁓ pre-economic crisis. So I just can't imagine how difficult it is like now to get funding. ⁓ You know, they say a lot, most businesses are funded through family and friends. ⁓

Alan Li (10:03) Yeah.

Ann Cantrell (10:19) I was very thoughtful about that $150,000. I wonder what it would be now. I think there's different, there's things that are a lot cheaper and there's things that are a lot more expensive. Part of that was building a website and photography, which now you can do on Shopify and get a template and you can have, you know, my, I have a dog.

high school she could probably like you know get my template going. Although we have an amazing, I have an amazing person that does our website so I don't mean to belittle it but it's got a lot easier and a lot cheaper like I used to have to pay for someone to photograph everything. Now you can get all the photographs from vendors and you know most things. It's a lot, lot, now you can remove a white background with like a touch of a button but at the time you know this was. ⁓

Alan Li (10:44) Yeah, technology is crazy.

A lot tougher.

Ann Cantrell (11:10) almost 20 years ago. Yeah, so the website was a lot more money ⁓ than it would be right now, but my rent was a lot cheaper. And so now I see the cost of like a brick and mortar business being much higher and the website being much cheaper to actually get up and running. Now, at the time though, it was the inverse for me. I was spending a lot more money on ⁓ website than I was for my first store.

Alan Li (11:36) Yeah. And for the 150K, what were like the approximate breakdowns into this, like this amount is allocated for the website. This amount is allocated for rent and for, you know, inventory.

Ann Cantrell (11:46) Yes, well, when I first

started, our rent was, I called it apartment rent. It was like $2,500, which...

Alan Li (11:55) And how big of

a square footage was this? OK.

Ann Cantrell (11:56) It was 520 square feet and

it was one block from a main street. you venue Brooklyn listeners, it was one block from Atlantic Avenue, but across the street. And if you are not from Brooklyn or familiar with that area, it's a four lane highway. it's and it's a busy corridor, but ⁓ we were also one block past that. like every little ⁓

Every couple feet means something in Brooklyn, or in, ⁓ with location. So, it was a good spot. We were on the corner, but it wasn't a great spot. we were there for six years. ⁓ and so that's why I think I was able to get what I call like apartment rent. Cause it was very, it was fairly inexpensive compared to other things. The other thing I did look at other places, I looked at several other places, but a lot of them needed a lot of work and time and like, you know,

Alan Li (12:50) Mm.

Ann Cantrell (12:53) There was one place I several places I loved but I was like this would be all of my money would be into building the build out and I just didn't have the funds or the time for that and so ⁓ we just opened in like what they call a vanilla box and ⁓ just a pretty fairly standard white little box area. Although you know we also when we pulled up the rug from the people before I realized

is that they had stained all around the rug. So I had to redo the whole floor, which was something I hadn't really budgeted. And so there's always things that come up. But ⁓ it was more or less ⁓ on a cool corner, one block from a main street. And we were there for six years.

Alan Li (13:33) Yeah.

Okay.

And ⁓ for the business, could you describe for our listeners, you know, how exactly it works? It's a gift store. I assume you're sourcing these gifts and curating them, buying them, and then selling them to customers. But in your own words, ⁓ could you describe it, please?

Ann Cantrell (13:57) Yeah, absolutely. So it's called Annie's Blue Ribbon General Store, and we buy from hundreds of small makers, big companies. ⁓ The blue ribbon means the best that life has to offer, so we're really, we also say we do all the hard work so you don't have to, meaning like we're sifting through all the amazing product and not so amazing, there's even a lot more.

unattractive crap out there, for lack of better word. ⁓ But we're, you know, finding the best and we pull together stories. work in, as I said, I worked in the fashion industry. We always ran on concepts and stories, meaning like we don't just buy like everything from one company. We pick and choose and we create stories, curations, if you will. So when you walk into our store, there's like an intent and a purpose on our front tables that like this is what we stand for.

just put out a new curation. ⁓ think we're calling it Verdant ⁓ Forest Verdant or Verdant Forest or ⁓ some named as like a transitionary ⁓ season now ⁓ for this time of the year. ⁓ But we're you know we really I've always run this idea of like the seasonal concept which is exactly what we did in fashion when we're like

you know, looking at spring or holiday or whatever. So we're curating goods for you. And that's basically what we're doing. We're buying from wholesale sources. We go to a lot of trade shows. There's also new websites that have really gotten popular since the pandemic, like FAIRE, F-A-I-R-E, and we buy a lot of product from them. We work with the rep reps and rep groups, meaning that people are representing different merchandise

and we buy from them. It's really a mixture of all these things. But I still am looking for always the best gifts. again, I mentioned when I ⁓ was starting out, I would look for something a friend gave me. That is still true to this day. I'm always looking for cool new things. I'm always on the hunt.

Alan Li (16:14) Yeah. How many skews of items do you have and how much time do you spend sourcing these items on a day to day basis?

Ann Cantrell (16:23) We have like tens of thousands of SKUs. I mean, we've been open for almost 18 years. So like our numbers are really high. Like, you know, it's assigned a number. So I can't even, it's a lot. ⁓ Plus everything down to a SKU level goes by color and size. So, you know, it's a lot. ⁓ plus we try to be very specific when we're.

in putting that information into our point of sale system so that we get the best reporting out and we know like that blue sold better than green or extra large pajamas don't sell as well as you know extra small or whatever it is. So we try to be very specific. So we have we have a ton of SKUs and ⁓ but at any given I don't even know we would have thousands of vendors too. That is I think what one of our competitive advantages is we really do have these

merchandise by concept, like I said, so and we're not just buying from like certain lines where I will look at any, I will look at any catalog, go to any trade show, go to anything. I'm always on the hunt for things. I, in terms of time, I would say like that is my, besides like working with my great team and making sure things are running smoothly, I would say our number one thing is always looking for cool new products.

Alan Li (17:46) I say, and how big is your team at the store?

Ann Cantrell (17:50) Yes, we have a great team. just did a fun Instagram post called Annie's Bunch, like off of the Brady Bunch. If you guys want to check out us on Instagram, Annie's Blue Ribbon General Store. We have, currently we have four full-time employees. I have a amazing buyer who's also like our general manager. And we have someone, a logistics manager who handles our website and just a lot of other things like she's very good at

She's very detail oriented, so that's super helpful to have on your team. We have a great store manager who is very amazing at handling like huge shipments and stress and all of our part timers and allocating and prioritizing what's most important. And then we also most recently hired a marketing person who does our social media. She does our emails. We're doing more events. We've been really leaning.

into more events. then we have about eight part timers or so ⁓ that most of them have been with us for years and they're amazing and we've got a great team.

Alan Li (19:06) That's great.

And I know you said you were at your first location for about six years. What prompted the move to your second location?

Ann Cantrell (19:14) While I always knew I wanted a bigger space, I also thought and still think our store is so awesome, I wanted more eyes on it. So I was looking for a more heavily trafficked area besides a clean off the beaten path location in ⁓ Boreham Hill, Brooklyn. And... ⁓

Quite frankly, my landlord wasn't great either, and I just knew we needed to move. We would borrow his basement during the landlord's basement during... ⁓

key times when we were sending out lot of packages. We were just outgrowing our space. ⁓ Simultaneously, our lease was up for after five years, ⁓ but I was looking for another place and I really wanted to be on this one street in Brooklyn. did not work out, Court Street. ⁓ But then ⁓ another store actually ⁓ approached us. They were moving to North Carolina and they wanted...

store, ⁓ another independent cool gift shop to open in that in their location, which was such a gift to us and to the neighborhood. So they basically recruited us to go over to their spot. And ⁓ that was actually that was through one of our reps. I said like, that's how we buy some product. And that was through a rep kind of put us in touch, like she knew that we wanted a bigger space. She knew that they wanted to leave but like, ⁓ leave New York but

but wanted to leave the neighborhood in good hands. And so she put us together and ⁓ we've been in our new location for actually like 12 years almost to the day. I think we opened on August 15th, yes.

Alan Li (21:00) That's incredible.

Yeah, and

how big is this space compared to the 500 square foot first location?

Ann Cantrell (21:08) It's about twice the selling space, but we also have a full basement. So it feels a lot bigger. We also have a backyard where we do events and things like that, and we have a full basement. ⁓ by New York standards, ⁓ it's 1,100 square feet. It feels pretty big. ⁓

Alan Li (21:13) Mm.

Ann Cantrell (21:32) Also, our foot traffic is just so much higher. We've probably quadrupled our foot traffic in the process too. We are on Fifth Avenue in Park Slope, Brooklyn, which has about 500 independent businesses. And I think it's one of the busiest streets. Yes, it's really, there's like, I, there's banks that are chain stores, you know, like banks, but otherwise there's no chain stores. It's all independent businesses.

Alan Li (21:40) wow.

500 independent businesses. Wow.

Ann Cantrell (22:02) It was also named by Time Out Magazine as the coolest street in New York City. So it's a really fun place. I'm a hyper local owner. I live like literally around the corner. So I'm also very much ingrained in the neighborhood and I love where I live. So it's great. It's great.

Alan Li (22:21) Yeah.

Approximately how many people would come into the store on an average day?

Ann Cantrell (22:28) That's a good question. I we used to have a counter. ⁓ I teach at FIT That's where I'm talking to you now from at the Fashion Institute of Technology and so in some of my classes we would talk about the ⁓ Conversion rate which means how many people walk into the store versus how many sales that you have So we had a counter for a while but it was tough though because people would be running out to lunch like in the store or Like someone would go out and put their dog out and come back in so I felt like our numbers were like

Alan Li (22:36) Yeah.

Ann Cantrell (22:58) not exactly correct in terms of how many people were in and out the door. ⁓ But we, ⁓ hundreds, I we get a lot of people in and out. We ⁓ are also... ⁓

We get a lot of tourists. know tourism overall, I've heard, numerically in New York City is down right now, but I feel like we got a ton of tourists, not just people from different parts of the world that are visiting and want to come to Brooklyn, but also, you know, someone's mother or, you know, they're visiting their friends in the neighborhood. So we get a lot of that. We also have a very cool, we are a destination because we have a very

cool ⁓ print machine called an NCRT machine. Have you heard of the NCRT machines?

Alan Li (23:46) Hmm. No, haven't.

Ann Cantrell (23:49) There are these print machines that were started by this woman, Anna, in CRT, who is actually from our neighborhood, Park Slope, Brooklyn. But she has these machines around the country. it started because she wanted to do, she moved to Maine during the, I think during the pandemic, and she needed to do her laundry. And she was really inspired by some of the vending machines that she grew up with in our neighborhood, where you put in quarters and like get something fun out.

quarters and I'll get to the quarters in one moment because there's a little asterisk there but you put it in quarters and then you get out this print and so people collect them all over the city they have one at the Whitney Museum they have one at Grand Central there's one at the Barkley Center I think there's one at Warby Parker and they're only a dollar and ⁓ they're very thoughtful

The NCRD team is very thoughtful because you can only get certain prints at certain locations. So not only do we have custom prints that are just for us, we did a pigeon, ⁓ Guyanami Plaza, is like an arch that is very iconic to our neighborhood, and ⁓ one that looks like a retro tattoo that says spread love, it's the Brooklyn Way. So you can only get those with us, but then also we have like a disco ball and an apparel, and those are all

only

available at our location. So you really have to go like around the city and people collect them. I mean, when I tell you people come in with like Pokemon Go books that have been replaced with NCRD prints, it's ridiculous. So we got a ton of people coming in for those prints. ⁓ Yes, we had so many quarters that we actually had to convert to tokens. Just this last week we converted instead of putting in quarters, you know.

Alan Li (25:22) Heh

Yeah.

I have to look into those.

Ann Cantrell (25:40) put it you now have to go to the front and get tokens.

Alan Li (25:41) Yeah, that makes sense.

⁓ That's really cool. And then I know you mentioned, ⁓ you you were teaching at, or you are teaching at FIT and talking a bit about the conversion rate and the sales. We'd love to dive into a little bit of the numbers of the business as well. Like what are, you know, rough sales numbers or items sold on a monthly basis.

Ann Cantrell (26:02) Yes, good questions. ⁓ I'll start off by saying that I think you, in some of the prep questions, you had asked me things that were ways that we have overcome some challenges in business. And one of the biggest challenges that we had, and most people lived through or didn't, ⁓ is the COVID and the pandemic. ⁓

when I think about like trying times, not just the pandemic itself, but the...

social justice issues that followed, then supply chain ⁓ issues, like where we like, you know, I famously, I think I bought like Hanukkah gelt from like four different suppliers just to make sure that we were going to have like Hanukkah gelt for our families. And that's like just one example, but like, ⁓ it taught us so much and we had so many lessons learned. And I remember like, I still have like PTSD from it as I'm sure a lot of business owners do, but

or just everybody for different reasons. But that March, 2020, when we had to close, I was like, my God, have like, I think at the time I felt like we had seven people that I felt like personally responsible for that, like, you know, I had to pay, like they had to pay their rent and how are we going to do this? And we were mandated to be, we closed before the governor mandated us to be closed, but here we are like completely closed. Luckily we had a robust website

Alan Li (27:25) Yeah.

Ann Cantrell (27:37) time and luckily I had someone that had a car and felt comfortable driving to the shop to pack up packages and somehow we were able to do like 75 % of our business during that time period online and I just thought like this is something we're never going to recover from like this is so devastating and I think we were interviewed by AM New York for like a quick pivot to online and I it was and I was so grateful for that.

time because also and it was around Easter time too and I remember like someone posted a picture on Instagram of like all these bunnies that were in our window and they're like free these bunnies and I was like I know let's free these bunnies because it was like Easter and I everybody just wanted to like have something to celebrate and you know it wasn't even like a religious thing it was just like we you know needed Easter egg dying kits and bunnies and I my friend was like listen and like you

can't even order an Easter egg dying kit on Amazon right now. It's like gonna come after Easter because they're prioritizing Clorox wipes and things like that. anyway, we were able to really kind of like lean into that again. And so we've really overcome that. I guess what I'm also ultimately trying to say is that we are up about 38 to 40 % from pre pandemic numbers, which is like astounding to me that we are that, you know, we were chugging along and doing

fine and then this like you know

devastating and tumultuous event on so many levels. ⁓ As a college professor, like, this is like the greatest case study of all time, like how some businesses thrived and some businesses failed and how, you know, people connected or didn't connect. But overall, I think one of the things I'm most proud of is that we came out of the pandemic stronger than ever, and we've been able to maintain those sales. ⁓ I think, you know, for multiple reasons, which we can talk about if

if you're interested. so ⁓ I would say just overall, we have really been able to stay up about 38 to 40 % from pre-pandemic. So I'm really proud of that. ⁓

Otherwise, just generally, ⁓ I would say that we could sell candles, cards, and candy all day long. We sell a ton of candles. When I first moved into this new location, I remember my buyer at the time was like, I wanted to get a second candle line. We only had one candle line. And she's like, do think we can sell two different kind of candles? Now we have sold so many different kind of candles. ⁓

Our best customer actually literally just buys candles from us. ⁓ And he comes in all the time. He burns a lot of candles. And we sell cards as in greeting cards. I love that people still send greeting cards. And we just participated in Stationery Store Day, which was really fun. ⁓ And candy. And so if you think about those things, those are all things that people, I love when kids save up their money and bring all their little

Alan Li (30:34) Mm-hmm.

Ann Cantrell (30:53) like

change the front and buy some, ⁓ buy whatever their favorite candy is, or they've saved up their allowance and bought their friend a tree or something like that. But, ⁓ you know, those are also things that people need often, you know, or not need, ⁓ Yes, as categories, I would definitely say candles, greeting cards.

Alan Li (30:58) Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

So those are your top three sellers.

Okay. And when you said you were

up 40 % since pre pandemic levels, is that mostly driven because of the website or is that more sales into the store or a combination?

Ann Cantrell (31:30) I think it's a combination. think that we got more visibility during COVID because we did, we just tried everything. We were trying different social media things. did Instagram lives. made these cool mystery packages. We definitely tried to be there for the customer because also, ⁓ you know, we are, are,

visibility really raised during that time. Then that was like maybe 2020. In 2021, I think what I started to notice was that our Monday through Friday traffic was better than our weekend traffic prior. And then I realized people were working from home. And instead of, you know, buying the birthday present for their aunt or their kid's, you know, friend in the city or online, they were just coming into the store during the week instead

because between meetings or whatever it was. And ⁓ so I started to see more, you know, daily traffic, which was great. And so our, you know, now it's more spread out over days. And as people went back to work, ⁓ I definitely see some changes. We're back to like stronger weekends. ⁓ But I think overall, a couple of things happened during that time period as well. You really saw businesses close and that

you

whether it was restaurants or different, and they could have closed for different reasons than just like, you know, what was happening during the pandemic. But people really realize the impact of when they don't shop in small independent businesses in their neighborhood and they close. you know, when you shop in those independent stores, there's so much more creativity. There's so much more soul to the neighborhood. All of those things, which is why I feel so strongly about small independent businesses versus

versus, you know, targets and big box stores. So I think people really, like that hit home. I remember sending an email out to just like my friends personally for holiday of 2019. And I was like, please think about, you know, supporting and shopping, not just my store, but like independent businesses is so important. Where money goes back, like Ty and I can talk all day about how more money goes back from tax perspective. It's like, you know, a cycle where we're supporting our neighborhood.

so much locally as well. So it all kind of works together, but it really, I think it started to really hit people during 2020 and 2021. And then since then, I think it's been really cool to see some interesting new businesses pop up in our neighborhood. We have a cool independent bookstore. Maybe you want to interview them. It's called The Ripped Bodice and it's a romance bookstore and they're on our next, they're one block over.

Alan Li (34:17) Okay.

Yeah, we'll check them out too. Yeah, I said we'll check them out too.

Ann Cantrell (34:23) Pardon?

Yeah.

And they, ⁓ yeah, they only have one other location in LA. They have tons of people that line up on pub date, publishing dates, lines around the block. we've, you know, been benefited, I call it the ribbed bodice effect. I'm really grateful for surrounding businesses that also amplify us as well. And ⁓ we have amazing restaurants. So it's been more of a destination as well, I think even more so. ⁓

Alan Li (34:49) Yeah.

Ann Cantrell (34:57) that

we got named Coolest Street in New York City and I think part of that is we during the pandemic also participate our street also participated in Open Streets which was ⁓ where the street closes down during on usually on Saturdays and to foot traffic and I'm sorry to like ⁓

vehicle traffic, so it's just pedestrians and ⁓ So it's really was really great for restaurants and bars that you know couldn't Inside during that time I stores not so much, but still I live like I said I live in the neighborhood. There's like a live band on every other block It's just became like a fun place to spend the afternoon and so all of those things kind of combined I think really have helped us ⁓ be have a really strong presence as well as just

Alan Li (35:28) in small business. Yeah.

Ann Cantrell (35:50) than making sure that we're really tight and strong on social media, mostly Instagram in our case, and a really strong website where we ⁓ definitely put up a lot more items than we used to as well. During the pandemic, we had like a shoppable window. So everything that was in our window was like, you know, QR code to that. But we just kind of kept up the pace of keeping, of putting more items online. As you, as we talked earlier,

said we have thousands of SKUs, tens of thousands of SKUs, it'd be impossible to put all those online. were just a little, we're a little bit more, ⁓ you know, we're only put things online that we buy more into and things like that. So we've just kind of been able to maintain that level on our website as well. So kind of all works together to keep elevating the store set.

Alan Li (36:41) Yeah. And are you

able to share rough figures of ⁓ what the sales look like now? Is it like mid six figures high, like seven figures?

Ann Cantrell (36:54) We're doing really well. mean, we definitely are over in the seven figures area.

Alan Li (37:01) great.

That's exciting. And then what split of that is ⁓ in online versus offline?

Ann Cantrell (37:08) Yes, that's a good question. ⁓ It depends on how much press we get, everything like that. think industry standard is like between 10 and 15 percent. I'd say we're around 10 and 15 percent for online purchases. But in our old store when we had 500 square feet and we had lower sales and we had huge, you know, maybe we were very press driven for a long time. If we got something in a magazine or the New York Times, it'd be very

It's very advantageous to us. That has also changed, unfortunately. It seems like most of those go to affiliate marketing right now. And so I'd really be thoughtful as just a consumer that we're not just always buying from Amazon or wherever.

⁓ you know, these big box retailers. But so at that point, I remember one year our online business was 50 % of our business, which is quite scary. Like what if you don't get in that magazine the next year? What if that, you know, you don't find that item that clicks with people? So I think we're in a really healthy, healthy spot with online orders, but I would just also offer to people that are like...

other business owners are just thinking about that as well that, you know, even if, even if I said our sales from our online were like 1%, it's still, I think, really important to have a website. It validates you as a business. ⁓

Alan Li (38:32) for

Ann Cantrell (38:34) Like people like really can we have multiple times people are like, I looked on your site This is what I want or they'll like send wish lists and so you know, it's I say this also to our new marketing person where it's like you send an email and like maybe like Get a couple orders, but like that weekend that item sells out in the store or like we sell more, know so it's like not always like It's harder to draw lines to the website. Sometimes I

I do think it's also, I would say, call it a marketing tool as well.

Alan Li (39:08) Yeah,

and I know, I think I read online that most of your items are really affordable gifts that people can buy. I think under $20 or $25, that must mean you're selling quite a few of them, like hundreds of them per day.

Ann Cantrell (39:22) Yes, well, we, used to say you can have a really good time for $20. You can have a good time in the store for $20, a really good time for $200. That's definitely still true. We were named, I was really honored that we were named in Best of New York's Best Place to Get a Cheap Last Minute Gift. This was in 2008. We'd only been open for like a year and a half maybe, and it was also during recession time. nobody, I don't think anybody else has ever claimed that title.

Alan Li (39:32) Hahaha.

Ann Cantrell (39:52) New York magazine, it's not like some places like Best of Boston, you can get that multiple times. It doesn't really work that way, it seems with New York magazine. ⁓ so yeah, I'm just a very price conscious person myself. I feel like we are such a good value. Like I'll go to the grocery store and I'm like, ⁓ my god, how do I just spend like $89 on like dinner and like, you know, my daughter's lunch. ⁓ So I think that we, you know,

Alan Li (40:15) Yeah.

Ann Cantrell (40:23) try to offer really cool products. We're very price conscious, but we're also try to support a lot of independent makers. So it's a gentle balance in looking at price as well as obviously ethical manufacturing and all of those things. My focus at FIT is actually sustainability in fashion merchandising. Through the years, I have taught a lot of different classes on trends, on leadership, on product development, but really my focus is on the circular economy. So I always try to buy things

that you know are gonna stand the test of time both from a trend perspective as well as you know gifts and things that you'll treasure for a long time.

Alan Li (41:01) Yeah.

Yeah, and how are you splitting your time ⁓ as a professor at FIT versus your store? ⁓ What days are you at each?

Ann Cantrell (41:14) Yeah, I'm very ⁓ compartmentalized. I'm very good at being in one place and being there, which I think has really helped. ⁓ I'm a full-time professor at FIT, so I have to be here three days a week. ⁓ But I do teach some classes online, so I'm very flexible. I live right by my store. So usually my store are Mondays and Fridays, and then Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays in and out of FIT. ⁓ And that's why I have such a great team, I think.

I think everybody should strive to have a great team, but I think my business model is a little different ⁓ in that I'm also not there every day, you know, opening and closing the store.

Alan Li (41:56) Yeah. And when you said you're there Monday

and Friday, you're there more to help out, not necessarily like you're there opening and closing the store, right?

Ann Cantrell (42:05) Yes, well, ⁓ I think my number one thing that I'm really good at in the entire world, Alan, is re-merchandising the store or just visually, like from a visual perspective. And so that's also my favorite thing to do. I call it Zhijing. I'm the queen of Zhijing. So I just go around and like, you know. ⁓

Alan Li (42:06) or both.

Ha ha ha.

Ann Cantrell (42:26) And I also know, I'm like, you know, I have a buyer, but I'm also with her for all the decisions. So I know like, this is like really important. So we need to put this right in front or this makes people laugh. like, let's, I always try, right when you walk into a store on, as you walk in on the left, we try to have.

products that are really fun and also you realize, ⁓ they have a sense of humor, meaning the store. The store has a sense of humor. It's well priced. So we try to have things that are, you know, if we have things that are more expensive, they're probably going to be deeper in the store. ⁓

and really just want people to feel like really welcome and that we are that they're going to have a good time in there. It's almost like an escape from everyday life. So I'm there at Shijing. I do have a lot of buying appointments as you can imagine that we have a lot of things to buy. So I usually try to do buying appointments during that time. I always like hanging out with my team and

We do, like I said, we've been doing more events, so I try to be there for as many events as possible. And then also...

Alan Li (43:34) And when you say events,

you mean events at your store or also on other ⁓ people's venues as well.

Ann Cantrell (43:41) No events at our store. We've been running these monthly events called Thrive, where we thrive in 2025, where we're really trying to bring community together. In January, we did vision boarding and we had a meditation, but we had a bunch of magazines and that was really fun. In February, we made jewelry with intention. Next month, are doing a stress, working through stress as people are going

Alan Li (43:43) Okay.

Hmm.

Ann Cantrell (44:11) back to school and back into the harder schedule as we pivot into the fall. We've been doing mahjong lessons, which I personally, ⁓ it's my favorite game. I've been, we had, think we are on our fourth or fifth cohort of mahjong classes. ⁓ If an artist is in town or something like that, we really try to incorporate them. We currently right now,

we're putting up a dog days of summer ⁓ window that a local artist made. And so we're going to host dog happy hour. We have happy hour every Thursday from five to seven. That we got like dog treats made for neighborhood dogs and her like goes around. Yeah, absolutely. Build community. It's like just fun all around.

Alan Li (44:58) That's really nice, it's just to build the community.

⁓ And these events, are they mostly put on by your store or is it other people asking to collaborate? Like, I'd love to host something at your store.

Ann Cantrell (45:17) you

It's both. ⁓ I mentioned that we ⁓ have that NCRD machine. She was going to be in town. We had a big party for her that was during one of our happy hours, but we're always open to collaborate. If anyone's listening wants to collaborate, get in touch. We just had an ⁓ author who is an awesome, awesome artist. She reached out to us and asked us if we wanted to do an event over Columbus Day weekend. So of course we said yes. So we're always looking. We're pretty open. ⁓

And because we have that built-in happy hour, if there is a ⁓ local maker or someone that we made it a show or someone that's visiting, ⁓ we'll try to bring them in on a Thursday and make the happy hour kind of around them.

Alan Li (46:06) That's cool. What are your plans for Blue Ribbon over the next few years? Is it ⁓ more of the same or do you have other plans coming up?

Ann Cantrell (46:19) I'd say just more of the same, just becoming better at who we are. I know some people are always like, are you going to open up more stores? I did at one point look at different places. ⁓ We've done different pop-ups before. We did one on the Upper West Side. We did one in Greenwich, Connecticut. And both were really fun and successful. ⁓

Alan Li (46:25) Yeah.

Ann Cantrell (46:40) I also really just love my work-life balance right now. And I think that when you start opening more stores, it seems as though it becomes more about managing people and less about doing the work. And I still really like doing the work. And good people are really hard to find. I was just saying this weekend, I would have 1,000 stores if it wasn't so hard to find good people. And I have the best people. So ⁓ I don't know.

Alan Li (46:55) Yeah.

Ann Cantrell (47:10) have

one child, she's awesome. I have one store, it's amazing. So, just gonna be happy in that moment and keep doing, keep bringing the best that we have to the business every day.

Alan Li (47:23) I love

that. ⁓ Sort of reflecting on your journey over close to 20 years, having opened up Annie's Blue Ribbon General Store, is there anything that you would have done differently knowing what you know now?

Ann Cantrell (47:39) ⁓ If there's anything I would have done differently. You know, that's really hard to say. I am not a regret. I do not, I just do not live by regret. I have no, I have no regrets in life. I can think of only one and it's a silly one. But I try to really think that I learned from all of our...

mistakes or pivots. I did always want to be on that one street, Court Street in Brooklyn. It didn't work out. I think we ended up where we were supposed to be. There were different people that maybe were right for our business. Maybe I should have hired them sooner or let them go quicker because it wasn't the right fit. I don't know. You can rethink all of those things, but I more like to focus on the positive and think about, you know, what

could be and how strong and

what we did come and how positive things did turn around. ⁓ I was thinking before we met, I saw some of your questions and notes about things that we might talk about and I was really so adamant in thinking that some of our biggest defeats end up being our best lessons and most successful pivots like will be turned down by a vendor because someone's selling them down the street and like magically someone even more exciting

local will come in like the next day. And so I really feel like there's always, I'm a very positive person, Alan. So I really always just trying to see the best of the situation and not like rethink things.

Alan Li (49:09) I can tell.

Yeah,

and I really think ⁓ to your point of staying in the game and being and doing the work over an extended period of time is really important, ⁓ especially since you've been doing it for such a long time.

Ann Cantrell (49:29) I know

I still really just love it. I love finding cool new product. I love seeing when customers come to the counter and I'm like, my God, I never even thought of those things together. they're like, yeah, it's for a new mom. And I'm like, my God, that's so perfect. their sister that's going through it or whatever it is. I'm always like, their customers are so thoughtful and I just feel so gratified doing what we do every day. really do. I'm still totally in it and I love it so much.

Alan Li (49:59) Awesome. Yeah, well, I know this episode will be really inspirational for a lot of the business owners who are just starting out. It may just have a couple years under their belt or even business owners who are aspirational, but it's really cool and fun to have heard your journey. And so thank you for sharing.

Ann Cantrell (50:12) Yeah, good. Thank you. Thanks for having me.

All right. Thank you so much, Alan.

Alan Li (50:19) Of course.

Alan Li (50:22) Thanks for listening. If you liked this episode, feel free to visit openingsoonpodcast.com for all of our episodes online. If you run a retail store and need updated furniture or signage, please feel free to visit www.signsandmirrors.com. Lastly, if you have any feedback or would to be a guest on the show, email me at alan, A-L-A-N, at signsandmirrors.com. I promise I'll respond. Thanks for listening.