Consign Charleston Spreading Out in New Digs

After three years in business in West Ashley needed more space.

Owners Seana Flynn and Beth Burrell looked around the Charleston area and found a new home for their selective consignment business next door. At the beginning of February the store moved into the 27,000-square-foot anchor space in Ashley Oaks Plaza Shopping Center that until recently was the home of Sofa Superstore. Long before that the space was built for a Food Lion.

"The plaza was falling to two-thirds empty with Sofa Superstore closing," Flynn said.

Flynn, who's store's motto is "Recycle, Resale, Shop," said stopping the center from dying off was a major factor in her decision to relocate within Ashley Oaks Plaza. Flynn said the decision wasn't completely altruistic though, she owns some investment property in the neighborhood behind the plaza and a mostly vacant strip shopping center just around the corner wouldn't be good for the neighborhood either.

"Part of it is about the local neighborhood reclaiming the area," Flynn said.

The store wasn't initially looking for a space so large, but Flynn said the pickings were slim to non-existent for a 15,000-square-foot space, which was the size they were searching for. Burrell runs their Columbia store Roundabouts, which operates in a 36,000-square-foot space.

"We didn't want to go that large," Flynn said about the Charleston store. "Once you bumped up your search to 20,000-plus square feet there was a lot more to choose from."

Flynn said after looking at larger spaces she and Burrell narrowed their choices to three, including the Ashley Oaks Plaza space that they settled on. It needed the most work, she said, but gave them the best deal.

Now in a space more than triple the size of its previous location, Consign Charleston is spreading out and taking more items on consignment.

"In just over a month we're about to fill 85 percent of it," Flynn said.

The empty storefront gave Flynn a "blank vanilla space" to work with, and work she did. The company built new changing rooms, constructed several counters and even added a bathroom. Flynn said the store also put up a few walls to create a storage room for items that aren't out on the sales floor yet.

Flynn said recycling and reusing things is very important to her personally so running a business that finds new life for items is a perfect fit for her. Now with the move into the old gorcery store space, Flynn is taking that a step further and recycling a building to bring new life to an entire shopping center.

Over the years Consign Charleston has built up a stable of more than 3,800 consignors and that number continues to grow every week, Flynn said. The staff has also grown from just Flynn and Burrell in the beginning to 11 employees, and Flynn said she is looking to hire a few more people.

Depending on the item, consignors get 50-65 percent of the sale of their items; the more expensive an item the higher percentage the consignor retains.

Flynn hand-selects every item the store sells, so she focuses on items she thinks will sell quickly in the store. She typically doesn't take clothing items that are more than three years old, even if they are brand new. But Flynn says she refers consignors to various other consignment shops in the area if she doesn't think the items are right for Consign Charleston.

"turn and burn is my motto," Flynn said. "It's my job to get your money as fast as possible."

"It's a mutual relationship," Flynn continued. "I can't succeed if the consignors don't succeed, and if the consignors don't succeed I can't succeed."

When Consign Charleston takes in an item the consignor is assigned a number in the store's computer system, and each item that consignor brings in gets its own number so the system can track all the sales and pay out the consignors immediately.

"There's no waiting till the end of the month for a check," Flynn said.

And Flynn is using the store to give back to the Charleston community as well. If items haven't sold after 90 days, the consignors have a week to reclaim the items. Anything that is not reclaimed is donated to one of three charities the store supports.

Many items are donated to My Sister's House and Abraham's Closet which pass them along to the women and families the charities serve. Some items however are sent to Cheap And Chic, another store run by Consign Charleston that sells the unsold consignment items at $8 or less each with proceeds going to the Connie Lieding Scholarship Fund through the National Crittendon Foundation.

"Our consignors like that we work with charities," Flynn said. "They know if their items don't sell they are going to people who can use them."