Visit a typical mall in AnyTown, U.S.A., and it's easy to lose your sense of
place. As you walk along, checking out the stores, it doesn't take long to notice
that most of them are the same familiar national retailers that you see virtually
everywhere, whether you're in Kansas or Kentucky. But in Charleston, West
Virginia, there's a shop with a distinct difference. You won't find one like it
anywhere else.
Showcase West Virginia is a consignment-based retail shop that
features specialty and gourmet foods, arts and crafts, pottery, glass, jewelry,
textiles, candles, dried flowers, toys, and a host of other items, all produced by
West Virginians. The mall shop "provides a valuable service to customers searching
for authenticity, workmanship, and quality," says Pam Curry, executive director of
the Center for Economic Options (CEO), a private Charleston-based nonprofit
organization that has been helping small-scale West Virginia
business owners find markets for their products for nearly 20 years.
Showcase West Virginia is the latest—and most ambitious—project undertaken by
CEO, which last year was honored with a Presidential Award for Excellence in
Microenterprise Development. The award, given by the Community Development
Financial Institutions Fund of the U.S. Department of the Treasury, was one of
five made nationwide but the only one that went to an organization in a rural
area.
Microenterprises or microbusinesses—generally defined as businesses that
employ five or fewer employees—play a significant role in the West Virginia
economy. A research study done jointly by CEO and Marshall University cites 1999
statistics showing that microbusinesses employ more than 73,000 West Virginians,
or roughly 10 percent of the state's labor force, while producing nearly 13
percent of the goods and services in the state.
"If West Virginia's microbusinesses were classified as a separate industry,"
says Michael Hicks, assistant professor of economics at Marshall's Elizabeth
McDowell Lewis College of Business and director of research at the university's
Center for Business and Economic Research, "it would be a larger employer than the
coal industry, the manufacturing industry, the financial sector, or public
utilities." And microbusinesses clearly are critical to economic growth. Says
Hicks: "The higher the proportion of small firms in an economy, the more diverse
the economy and the higher the overall growth rate."
Microbusinesses everywhere struggle with issues such as how to price, package,
and market their product, but those problems are accentuated in a rural state such
as West Virginia. That's where CEO comes in, with its market-access education and
training program.
Shifting Strategies
For its first ten years of life, CEO was known as Women and Employment, and
initially focused on job-skills training for women. "It didn't take us long," says
Curry, "to realize that job-skills training worked only in areas where there were,
in fact, jobs." So CEO shifted its strategy to one that encourages people to use
their skills and talents as entrepreneurs, in a sense creating their own jobs.
To do that, the center first identified "sector networks"—in other words,
groups of people doing similar things. "By creating opportunities for like
businesses to come together, they can benefit from economies of scale," explains
Marilyn Harrell, CEO research and development manager. "Some people say, 'Well,
they're competitors, so they won't talk to each other.' But CEO's not found that
to be the case. Instead, people come together and find they can get better deals
because they've got better volume. And they can fill bigger orders than one person
working alone can do."
In 1992, for example, CEO identified a group of home-based knitters who were,
as individuals, struggling economically. By bringing them together as the
Appalachian Knitwear Network, CEO enabled the knitters to increase their
production and sell to a market that otherwise would have been inaccessible to
them. In 1995, CEO spun this program off as an independent nonprofit called
Appalachian by Design, which today manages a network of approximately 50
home-based knitters. Similarly, CEO put together the Appalachian Flower Network
and set about helping rural flower businesses market to corporate, retail, and
wholesale buyers.
In 1996, 1997, and 1998, CEO co-sponsored with the West Virginia Small Business
Development Center three consecutive Appalachian Small Businesses Expos at the
Charleston Civic Center. Those were followed in 1999 by the People's Marketplace,
which attracted more than 70 buyers from retail, wholesale, and catalogue outlets
to scout and shop 60 rural West Virginia microbusinesses. In 2000, CEO produced a
printed catalogue featuring the products and services of the People's Marketplace
participants. The catalogue was distributed to more than 800 targeted buyers
nationally.
Also in 2000, the center sponsored "Money in the Mountains: Sustainable Options
for Microbusinesses," a conference that focused on growing businesses using West
Virginia's forest resources in a sustainable, ecologically sound way. More than
200 microbusiness owners, landowners, and community leaders participated in the
two-day event.
Creating Opportunities
In the fall of 2000, one of CEO's clients was offered an opportunity to rent a
small space (480 square feet) at the Charleston Town Center Mall for the
three-month holiday season. Unwilling to take such a big step on her own, she
approached CEO and proposed that it take advantage of the mall's offer. The result
was the Showcase West Virginia retail store.
"One microbusiness working alone would have a hard time being successful in a
shop at the mall," says Curry. "We were able to bring the opportunity to access
the holiday market to more than 50 businesses."
Originally, Showcase West Virginia was conceived of strictly as a three-month
proposition. It was scheduled to close December 31, 2000. However, the response to
the shop was so enthusiastic, both from the shopping public and the participating
microbusinesses, that a week before the shop's scheduled close, CEO decided to
keep its doors open.
"We know that being entrepreneurial means taking risks now and then," says
Curry. "We went into Showcase West Virginia knowing little about consignment-based
retail operations, but we learned quickly."
By March 2001, Showcase West Virginia was stocked with products from 100
microbusinesses, and it was becoming clear that the shop needed to expand. In May
CEO moved the shop into a 2,900-square-foot space. Today the store features
products from roughly 200 small-scale manufacturers and artists.
"The beauty of Showcase West Virginia is that it helps people diversify their
markets," says Ashley Summitt, CEO's program officer for retail operations. "Since
it's consignment-based, people use Showcase as a test market for their products,
and to introduce new product lines." CEO encourages its clients selling through
the Showcase West Virginia store to participate in tastings and demonstrations in
order to receive customer feedback. CEO also provides clients with business
training and ongoing technical assistance.
Through the West Virginia Development Office, the Appalachian Regional
Commission has provided funding that, when linked with private investment and
foundation funding, will enable CEO to provide specialized marketing training for
microbusiness owners; publish a microbusiness "yellow pages" for West Virginia;
continue a program of taking successful entrepreneurs to national craft and trade
shows; and continue the operation of Showcase West Virginia, along with possibly
expanding the shop to locations elsewhere in the state.
"Showcase West Virginia is more than a store," says Curry. "It mirrors our
commitment to helping people grow their businesses to whatever level they
choose."
Because CEO splits the proceeds from items sold at the shop with the producers,
it has, says Curry, "moved beyond its past role as an advocacy organization and
technical assistance provider and has been pulled by its program into the
marketplace right alongside its microbusiness clients. We are now a business
partner and fellow entrepreneur—assuming the similar risks and seeking similar
rewards." CEO is now working to develop additional "social-purpose" enterprises to
complement the retail store, generate income to help underwrite program expenses,
and create greater market access for West Virginia's small-scale
entrepreneurs.
The Showcase West Virginia retail store gets high praise from those who sell
there, such as Brenda Casabona, purveyor of DeFluri's Fine Chocolates in
Martinsburg. Casabona says that what sets Showcase West Virginia apart "is that
CEO makes us, and the other businesses that it assists, work in a real-market
framework.
"They provide us with tools to help us succeed," says Casabona, "but they make
us realize that our products and companies must compete in the real world. We all
have what we consider great ideas and great products. They make us realistically
assess our products and then help us make our products and our businesses
competitive in the marketplace. The Center for Economic Options really helps us to
help ourselves."
The Center for Economic Options is online at www.center
foreconoptions.org.
James E. Casto is associate editor of The Herald-Dispatch in Huntington,
West Virginia.