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3-2-1-Go!

 

Three - Two – One - Go!

Like an excited child counting down, gathering up the courage to jump into the deep end of a cold pool. And so it goes. We too have been counting down.

Three - Two – One - Go!

We started 2019 with three beautiful jewelry stores and soon will have one. Two years ago we set out to do something big and bold that would allow us to adapt more easily and get us more in line with our mission. Making the decision to consolidate requires courage. Sort of like jumping into the deep end of a cold pool.


In 2017 we started working with Andrea Hill, a highly regarded business consultant in the jewelry industry. Steve and I, along with our team, began laying out our mission and 10 principles to live by. It would become our beacon for all of our big decisions going forward. The discussions were difficult, as were the decisions. It became clear that to achieve everything we set out to do we needed to get back to our roots- one store filled with incredible jewelry from small batch designers and makers with similar values and passions to ours.


Our Wicker Park store was voted one of the Coolest Stores in America by Instore Magazine. It was a love letter to Chicago that Steve took six months to build. Deciding to walk away from that caused many sleepless nights.

Wickerbetter

Our Lincoln Square store was also recognized by Instore Magazine as one of the top 10 Coolest Stores in America. For 11 years, we have been the flagship to this beautiful neighborhood with a small town feel. Lincoln Square has an incredible sense of community we have never experienced in our other neighborhoods, and we will miss it.

lincolnsquarebetter

We are calling our plan a consolidation, but it’s really more of a reset. The world of retail is changing rapidly and the path of scale that we were on was no longer the best plan for us. We have thousands of loyal clients, a great reputation and no desire to rest on our laurels. It became obvious that we could only be better by being smaller.

The exciting part of this reset is that we got to change everything! With the help of our consultant, we have a new web site (you found it!); revamped our logo, color scheme and packaging ; and even added new artists to our designer collections.
It took some time, but we finally had the courage to reset, consolidate and become what we believe the future of retail will be. Big decisions are tough and scary, but we took the jump into the deep end of the pool and it’s not as cold as it looks.

Three – two – One – Go!

-- Melissa Quick

purplogobetter

*photo credit: Belen Aquino, Skip Gleichman