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All Her Eggs In One Basket
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Business New Haven
9/3/2002
By: Melissa Nicefaro
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ORANGE - The first six months of owning a new business can either be a time for seeing your dreams come true or wondering what you have gotten yourself into. Often, it's a little of both.
Val Spinaci remembers the first month of running her shop, VIP Baskets & Gifts on Old Tavern Road in Orange (just off the busy Boston Post Road at its intersection with Racebrook Road). “It was a little overwhelming, even though I came from a family business and pretty much knew what to expect,” she recalls. “A few things came up that I was not expecting. Everybody's hand was out.”
She opened her shop after more than four years of running the gift-basket business out of her house. The payoff of a bricks-and-mortar store afforded her both more space and the ability to broaden her line of product offerings.
“The response from people has been phenomenal,” she says. “We're coming into the fourth quarter and I'm definitely getting much busier.”
VIP Baskets & Gifts is a shop for most anyone looking to buy a gift - whether the recipient is a businessperson or simply a friend or neighbor. Spinaci has gone a step beyond the typical gift shop by stocking items that cater to business people and professionals.
“Most businesses are going to target corporate [customers] because they have a larger volume of people with them. If I didn't target both corporate and consumers, I'd be still working at home.” So many of her gift baskets do go to people working at area businesses.
The store itself sells much more than gift baskets. Giftware, gourmet food and drink items, candles and accessories, personal-care products such as sprays and lotions, stuffed animals, chocolate and rock soaps also adorn the shelves at VIP Baskets. And there is more yet to come since Spinaci just recently returned from two trade shows.
“Word-of-mouth has been, by far, my best advertising,” she says. “I have advertised in a local paper and just recently in a coupon booklet, but the outcome of word-of-mouth has outdone them both combined by a long shot,” says Spinaci.
Six months after opening in February, she is finally settling in and seeing business continue to grow.
Spinaci of course hopes to keep growing, but not to the point where the business gets too big and starts losing personal customer service. “My goal was to offer people a place to come where they feel like somebody,” she says. “Too many places today, nobody helps anybody.
“At least that's how I feel when I go shopping.”
Spinaci admits it blew her mind to see the expenses of the first three or four months as bills were coming every day and the new business was just taking off.
“I would suggest to people that whatever they think they're going to need, at least triple it. Don't even try it if you don't have that sort of backing,” she advises. “That's probably why so many small businesses come and go. They are probably gifted people, but everybody wants a piece of the pie.”
Six months into running her own store, Spinaci has no regrets and has the satisfaction of knowing there's nothing she would have done differently if given the chance.
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