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Mother and daughter, Debbie Stinar, left, and Tracie Rydgren stand in their Greeley store, A Country Touch. The pair recently expanded into Fort Collins with the opening of Sentiments.
Once a stay-at-home mom, Debbie Stinar filled her time with crafting, traveling to as many as 28 shows a year to sell her hand-made goodies.
Her daughter, Tracie Rydgren, got involved too, traveling the circuits through Colorado, Kansas and Nebraska, which kept them both away from home more than they liked. In 2001, they opted for something more.
“There was a lot of traveling, a lot of setting up and tearing down,” Rydgren said. “We thought, let’s set this up for good.”
The pair, both from Kersey in Weld County, opened A Country Touch in a small 1,200-square-foot shop in a strip mall in Greeley. Soon thereafter, they moved into the next space, adding another 1,500 square feet of goods.
In three years, they created a niche, offering items people couldn’t find at the big box stores, and they grew beyond even those walls.
Last spring, the developers of Front Range Village in south Fort Collins came a’calling, looking for small Greeley stores filling a niche that may be the big box stores didn’t. The pair opted to rent out a 2,500-square-foot shop in the new shopping center, which they call Sentiments, to sell higher-end goods, and see how far they can reach into the home decor and gift market. The store opened on Black Friday.
“We have really fantastic customers in Greeley who have supported us. ... For the seven years we’ve been in business here, our following is tremendous and that’s why that mall approached us last February,” Stinar said. “The traffic alone is amazing there.”
A Country Touch’s list of products runs the gamut, from candles, diffusers and small home furnishings, to cookbooks and gourmet foods to brand-named figurines and collectibles.
“Our store in Fort Collins is a bit more cosmopolitan,” Stinar said. “There’s a difference in their income level over there. That’s obvious the minute you stop into the town that they have more disposable income than we do.”
The women are still doing a bit of trial and error when it comes to which products to offer at their new store.
“We try to make it so it wasn’t the same as Country Touch, which makes it interesting for us,” Stinar said.
The pair try to offer what the big box stores can’t, not only in product but in customer service, Stinar said. When it comes to the weekly sales customers are used to at the bigger stores, that’s an area in which they cannot compete.
“You’ve got to attract the customers who maybe wants the unique product or something different, and with the personal touch,” Stinar said. “We spend a lot of time chit-chatting and (our customers) become part of our family. Our customers are very loyal, (and without them) we’d not be here today, because they have a lot of options out there, and they’re probably cheaper options.”
Stinar and Rydgren also credit their success to their employees.
“We have always been blessed with great workers and they really care for the store like we do,” Rydgren said.
Though Stinar is still catching her breath from the months it took to set up the new store, from the remodeling to the decorating, her daughter doesn’t want to rule out further expansion, if business really takes off.
“We have a lot of customers who come in and say, ‘It would be nice to have this store in their hometown,’ ” Rydgren said. “It gets us excited about expanding more.”
Her daughter, Tracie Rydgren, got involved too, traveling the circuits through Colorado, Kansas and Nebraska, which kept them both away from home more than they liked. In 2001, they opted for something more.
“There was a lot of traveling, a lot of setting up and tearing down,” Rydgren said. “We thought, let’s set this up for good.”
The pair, both from Kersey in Weld County, opened A Country Touch in a small 1,200-square-foot shop in a strip mall in Greeley. Soon thereafter, they moved into the next space, adding another 1,500 square feet of goods.
In three years, they created a niche, offering items people couldn’t find at the big box stores, and they grew beyond even those walls.
Last spring, the developers of Front Range Village in south Fort Collins came a’calling, looking for small Greeley stores filling a niche that may be the big box stores didn’t. The pair opted to rent out a 2,500-square-foot shop in the new shopping center, which they call Sentiments, to sell higher-end goods, and see how far they can reach into the home decor and gift market. The store opened on Black Friday.
“We have really fantastic customers in Greeley who have supported us. ... For the seven years we’ve been in business here, our following is tremendous and that’s why that mall approached us last February,” Stinar said. “The traffic alone is amazing there.”
A Country Touch’s list of products runs the gamut, from candles, diffusers and small home furnishings, to cookbooks and gourmet foods to brand-named figurines and collectibles.
“Our store in Fort Collins is a bit more cosmopolitan,” Stinar said. “There’s a difference in their income level over there. That’s obvious the minute you stop into the town that they have more disposable income than we do.”
The women are still doing a bit of trial and error when it comes to which products to offer at their new store.
“We try to make it so it wasn’t the same as Country Touch, which makes it interesting for us,” Stinar said.
The pair try to offer what the big box stores can’t, not only in product but in customer service, Stinar said. When it comes to the weekly sales customers are used to at the bigger stores, that’s an area in which they cannot compete.
“You’ve got to attract the customers who maybe wants the unique product or something different, and with the personal touch,” Stinar said. “We spend a lot of time chit-chatting and (our customers) become part of our family. Our customers are very loyal, (and without them) we’d not be here today, because they have a lot of options out there, and they’re probably cheaper options.”
Stinar and Rydgren also credit their success to their employees.
“We have always been blessed with great workers and they really care for the store like we do,” Rydgren said.
Though Stinar is still catching her breath from the months it took to set up the new store, from the remodeling to the decorating, her daughter doesn’t want to rule out further expansion, if business really takes off.
“We have a lot of customers who come in and say, ‘It would be nice to have this store in their hometown,’ ” Rydgren said. “It gets us excited about expanding more.”
Sentiments
10 a.m.-9 p.m. Monday-Saturday, and 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Sundays. Call (970) 377-0221.
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