My dream of owning a gift shop started with selling gift items and pumpkins under tents at my husband's place of business to test the market. The Pudgy Pumpkin Patch Gift Shop has been located in historic downtown Red Oak for the last four years. I purchased a building on the square that was built in the late 1800's.
After relocating the gift shop to downtown Red Oak, my business has literally grown by leaps and bounds, and serves not only Red Oak but Southwest Iowa and surrounding States.
I would use the grant money for inventory tracking software as well eCommerce software for our website. This would reduce the time manually spent to keep up with orders and demand. Our customers often state we need a bigger building, need to expand to our second level, or buy the vacant building adjacent to us when it comes available. I would also entertain one of these possibilities with the grant money as well.
The Pudgy Pumpkin Patch Gift Shop prides itself in being a fun place to shop for useful and unique products with a great staff and personalized service. i would like the business to continue for years to come, to do my part to keep downtown Red Oak alive and prosperous.