We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Carolyn Cherry. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Carolyn below.

Carolyn, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. If you could go back in time do you wish you had started your business sooner or later

We started our business six years ago, and while I wish we had done it earlier, it all works out for a reason. I had run the local Chamber of Commerce for years and had met a lot of great people. One of the yearly events was a townwide festival, during this festival I met a lot of talented artists. I thought how great it would be to have access to this work all year long. This was the impetus behind “The Purple Aardvark”. Create a retail space where artisans of all sorts could sell their goods, without the hassle of setting up tables and booths every weekend. I do have plenty of crafters who still do shows, but this offers them a great option all year long.

Starting sooner may have given us more years in our community, but at the same time, maybe when we started was the right time. We have a very supportive customer base. Our customers appreciate the hand made aspect of our merchandise. People appreciate that everything is made in America and realize how hard we work to source great stuff all year long.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Carolyn Cherry & Sandy Casey knew each other for years through kids and mutual friends. Sandy is a professional jeweler and had worked in a couple of jewelry stores throughout the years. Carolyn spent years running the Chamber of Commerce and had made a lot of contacts. The importance of Made in America resonated with both of them and it was something they wanted to share with the community they both lived in and love.

We are proud of the relationships we have cultivated with so many of our customers. We are lucky enough to know many generations of the families we serve. We love helping people find the perfect gift for their friends and loved ones.

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

The best source of new clients for us is word of mouth. We have a Main Street shop in the town we both raised our families in, so we thought our friends and acquaintances would be our customers. This turned out to be only partially true. We found a whole new group of people who loved the concept of hand made and made in America. We have a great sense of humor and some of our products illustrate that. Our customers are those who appreciate a little bit of snarky attitude and enjoy laughing and poking fun at themselves. These like-minded people share the experience of our store and we generate new customers through that.

Adding a webstore was a great way for us to reach out to new people too. This opened up our area of service beyond just our local community.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Our story of resilience is probably similar to may others. Covid forced us to close to the public for 3 months. We were forced to rethink a lot of the way we did things. We had to resort to live videos and face time shopping. We did a lot of local delivery in those months and really put ourselves out of our comfort zone. This was what caused us to transition to a webstore as well as our brick and mortar shop.

We saw so many businesses close for good during that horrible phase and we are so thankful for our supportive customers and our ability to change our way of doing business.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.thepurpleaardvark.com
• Instagram: purpleaardvark
• Facebook: Purple Aardvark

Image Credits
Purple Aardvark