Retailer: Compleat Lifestyles
Owner: Connie Stevinson
Location: Centennial, Colorado
Founded: 1984 (changed hands in 2011)
Square footage: 5,000 sq. ft. (kitchenware store)
The full name of her business says much about the way owner Connie Stevinson views the gourmet market: Compleat Lifestyles/Gourmet & Gifts and Home Accents. This umbrella concept is where shoppers find everything from kitchenware and tabletop to gifts and home furnishings in two separate, but neighboring, stores.
Stevinson bought The Compleat Gourmet & Gifts four years ago. The store had been a local fixture for three decades, known for its friendly, knowledgeable staff (all of whom stayed on with the new ownership). She brought the Home Accents side under her umbrella when a long-time home furnishings store next door went on the market.
The combination of the two businesses gives shoppers what Stevinson calls a “lifestyle” concept from kitchen to bedroom. “The word ‘gourmet’ didn’t fit the mix in the interiors store, so we added the Compleat Lifestyles name to encompass both stores,” she says.
Hanging on to the Shakespearean spelling of “complete” as she combined the two enterprises also helped Stevinson get title to the very modern, and all-important, URL listing she says, explaining that the Olde English version of the word was not in demand among those snatching up domain names.
And the internet has become a key marketing tool for her business. The kitchenware store maintains an email list of customers, which is updated constantly. While the retailer maintains a print mailing once a month, high postage costs have made print marketing less desirable, Stevinson says. Weekly email blasts promote various sales including a “gadget of the week,” that is eagerly anticipated by shoppers.
“It is amazing how many people open the email to find out what the gadget of the week is,” Stevinson says. Shoppers get 20 percent off that particular gadget, an incentive that has proven irresistible. “We have nearly 10,000 people on our email list and 30 percent of those folks open that email every week. It is our best way to communicate with customers.”
How does she build that list? Through a loyalty program that gives frequent shoppers 20 percent off one item each month (this is in addition to the “gadget of the week”). Customers register at check out and the store keeps track of the loyalty card in its computer system so shoppers don’t have to carry around a card.
“It is our way to combat the constant discounting of the national chains,” Stevinson says. “It also gives customers a reason to come in every month. With our lifestyle concept we have a lot of categories for them to consider.”
