That's the news, bbmoon has grown larger than our house and now will have a home of its own.

Our target opening is Friday, Nov 23, 2007

The Cautious Retailer

In 2001 my wife Marsy and I started bbmoon.com out of our house and carried items we felt typified a "Curiosity Shop". We felt we couldn't compete with the large online retailers so we sought out a small niche to serve. Now with six years of internet sales under our belt we are taking the next step of opening a store in Plainwell. Ensuring that our online business is successful before assuming the risk of opening a retail store has taken most of the worry and risk out of our expansion. In beautiful downtown Plainwell, bbmoon.com will cautiously step out of the internet into the real world where we'll be called a click and brick. We are not the only new business in Plainwell to start online before moving into a retail store. There is also a hobby store in plainwell that took the same path.

The ability that bbmoon.com shows as it scales up its operations we feel is a new and exciting way of growing a business. Even though our offerings have changed our commitment to customer service is what we think keeps us successful. We participate in the Yahoo's Shopper Rating Service and we have never dropped below their Excellent rating.

Six years is a long time to increase our business knowledge and find successfully items that will sell on the internet. It may seem like we are too cautious but not everything we have tried has worked, its been a learn by experience situation. At first we only had one line of items that really did well for sales and if we did not have that we probably would not be expanding right now. Its been hit and miss and even some of the early items that did well are no longer profitable. The pewter angels that did so well early on are now discontinued. Many items which sold well at first have declined to the point that we can not even get the wholesale price. Amazon and Ebay now dominate more and more categories including books and DVD's. Luckily, they also provide us with additional outlets for us to sell our goods.

We are excited to bring our wares to Plainwell and our surrounding communities. We know that we still have much to learn about what it will take to make our retail store successful. Treating our customers the same way we want to be treated when we're out shopping is how we want to succeed.

Tom and Marsy Stewart