Hackettstown Consignment Shop Surviving Sophomore Season

HACKETTSTOWN, NJ - Kathi Homenick rolled with punches when she was laid off from her job, took a leap of faith to become a business owner in Hackettstown and is still standing after her sophomore season of owning Me to You Consignment & Boutique was hamstrung by the COVID-19 pandemic.

"The store was closed for three months and my silver lining during that time was that I was able to ecommerce enable the website and sell a little online, but mostly our sales went to near zero for those months," Homenick told Patch. "It was especially upsetting because my 1st anniversary was in April, while we were closed. I had hoped I'd be building the business in year two, but instead we were shut down."

Homenick's path to Hackettstown's Main Street began after relocating to Washington Township and a dinner with her husband and a college friend at James On Main.

"We took a walk and my friend's husband saw a sign in the window and said, 'hey look, this store is for sale, why don't you buy that?; He was kidding, but it clicked in my head," Homenick said. "I had always loved thrift and other resale stores and had been shopping in them with my mom since I was young. I loved restoring furniture and most of my furniture in my house was reimagined. I started talking to the owner, looked at her income statements, did some research and decided it was going to be my second act."

Homenick said the previous owner was very good at the store, but she knew things were changing in brick and mortar.

"She had a website, which I updated and ecommerce enabled, so I could sell on it. She had a Facebook page, but it had about 200 followers, 1.5 years later we are closing in on 2,000 followers and it has a Facebook store component too," Homenick said. "I also started an Instagram account and currently have over 1200 followers. I advertised on Facebook and I am now working with a group to create an Instagram store. And of course, I increased the posts on social media to generate enthusiasm. The first year I kept the store items very similar because I knew I didn't know what I didn't know."

One of the things Homenick said she learned was all of the work needing to be done on paper.

"I needed to at minimum create Excel spreadsheets of consignors, track consignor sales and daily sales for tax purposes," she said. "I was also surprised by the volume of consignors and items, I had no idea I'd have to be so picky, or we'd need a store 5 times the size."

But despite the setbacks, the Manasquan native said the business has making it work.

"When we first reopened, things were going pretty well, we were about 12 percent off sales year over year, not bad considering we'd been closed 25 percent of the time,"Homenick said. "But with COVID coming back strong now, sales are down again and I get it, people have to be careful."

Coming in 2021, there are plans for more.

"I intend to move the store to a location with a parking lot for better customer experience. At that point we are going to change the name to Me to You Home and focus on furniture, which I paint, and home decor, still taking consignment on those items," Homenick said.

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