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| Cover
Story : Sweet Smell of
Success |
April
2004, Chain Store Age Magazine
By Connie Robbins Gentry
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At
Bath Junkie, shoppers create personalized fragrances for
bath-and-body products
Everybody’s looking for another Starbucks. The next
Chico’s or Crate & Barrel to satisfy a niche market.
Truly unique retail concepts are in short supply, and the
consumer wish list is filled with daunting demands. Retail
has to be experience-rich and engaging; personalized, yet
appealing to multiple demographics; rewarding and
memorable—with more than a hint of perceived value.
A Fayetteville, Ark.-based retailer, Bath Junkie, makes a
clean sweep of meeting all these expectations. Quite
possibly the next Build-A-Bear, Bath Junkie has created an
indulgent, yet affordable, opportunity for consumers to
create their own bath-and-body products.
The stores evoke a spa-like atmosphere with a gratifying
touch of whimsy. Bathed in light, the design is both
minimalist and colorful.
At the Raleigh, N.C., store, which opened last November in a
coveted location next door to The Cheesecake Factory at
Crabtree Valley Mall, the floor has a pale hardwood finish
and the walls are painted in tranquil shades of blue, green
and lavender. Metal shelves line one wall, showcasing the
untinted, unscented bath-and-body products, to which the
customer’s personalized combination of fragrances and
desired color is added.
Along the opposite wall is the mixing center, the Bath
Junkie equivalent of a soda fountain. More than a dozen
transparent Bath Junkie bags, each lined with a brightly
colored tissue paper, parade above the mixing counter,
providing customers with a visual palette on which to base
their selections. Bath Junkie Mix-Masters stand ready to
serve customers and willingly describe a product’s
content, as well as experiment with multiple-scent
combinations to satisfy each customer.
The centerpiece of the store is a testing island, which
holds blue vials containing more than 100 scents, inviting
customers to experiment and play with exotic blends. The
choices and potential combinations provide an enormous
variety, from a subtle "rain" fragrance to bold
floral aromas to instantly recognizable fruits.
Personality abounds throughout Bath Junkie, in creative copy
penned across signs and in classic rubber ducks that add
vivid yellow splashes and reinforce the company’s
tagline—the duck shops here.
The stores also offer special party packages, inspiring
customers to return and bring friends. Birthday
celebrations, book clubs and even men making gifts for their
significant others have signed up for Bath Junkie parties.
Mother and child reunion: This creativity and
entrepreneurial energy is the prodigal product of a
mother/daughter team, who have taken the Bath Junkie concept
through several evolutions over the last 13 years.
Judy Zimmer, CEO, and daughter Jocelyn Morelli, executive VP
and president of marketing, are self- described
"control freaks," who want every decorating detail
in their homes to coordinate—down to the color of the
lotions sitting on a bathroom counter.
"I worked in a bath shop during college that did custom
blending on a very small scale," explains Morelli, now
37 years old. "We loved the concept and started
experimenting with it through home parties and corporate
gift baskets."
Living in California at the time, Zimmer opened a store in a
mall under the name Soap Opera, but the mall itself
struggled and went out of business, taking the tenants with
it. Zimmer and her husband decided to retire in
Fayetteville, Ark., and were followed by Morelli, who
preferred the small city to the bright lights of Hollywood,
where she had worked in acting.
"A friend, who had a dress shop in Fayetteville, rented
us a corner in the back of her store and that’s where we
launched our first Bath Junkie," says Zimmer.
"I cashed in my 401K and we borrowed all of my
father’s retirement savings to get the business
going," continues Morelli. "Mom was the fearless
one; I might have given up on the idea. She worked in the
store and I took jobs waiting tables and became a paralegal
to support the business."
Today, the company has three corporate-owned stores, all
located in Arkansas, as well as 35 franchise stores in 10
additional states. In 2002, the three corporate stores had
combined sales of more than $350,000.
The concept is as appealing to franchisees as it is to
shoppers. The company began selling franchises in 2000.
Minimal inventory, low overhead and high profit margins
yield promising results for the growing enterprise.
"Every store that opens sells more franchises for us;
we get around 110 calls every month from people interested
in opening a store," reports Zimmer. "By the end
of this year, we should have 50 to 55 stores open and,
within 18 months, I expect there will be 100 Bath Junkie
stores."
In addition to loving the experience of custom-blended
bath-and-body products, Zimmer and Morelli wanted to provide
other women with a viable business opportunity and an exit
strategy to "escape pantyhose, high heels and
corporate-office cubicles."
"A new franchisee can open a store for under $100,000,
and that includes the franchise fee, inventory and build
out," enthuses Morelli.
In the 2003 holiday season, some stores had sales in excess
of $90,000 for the months of November and December.
Impressive numbers for a fledgling retailer occupying 700
sq. ft. to 1,000 sq. ft.
Like Build-A-Bear, Bath Junkie’s best locations are in
regional malls, upscale shopping centers and tourist
destinations. Steven Kay, Bath Junkie’s VP of finance and
the company’s corporate attorney, suggests the smaller
500-sq.-ft. stores have average sales of $15,000 per month
and the larger stores average $18,000 to $22,000 per month.
"The products have a good mark-up, which allows us to
be profitable at a lower threshold," he explains.
"A store selling $22,000 in a month may only have to
spend $2,000 to replenish the inventory."
Zimmer and Morelli, who were heading to Florida to open that
state’s third location when they talked with Chain Store
Age, provide hands-on service and training for every new
store. In addition to domestic store locations, a franchisee
will be opening the first store outside the continental
United States in the Virgin Islands later this year.
Bath Junkie
- Headquarters: Fayetteville, Ark.
- Number of stores: 38
- Type of business: Mall-based
specialty stores and tourist-destination boutiques where
shoppers create personalized scents for bath-and-body
products
- Annual sales (2002): $350,000
for three corporate-owned stores (sales not available
for franchise stores)
- Areas of operation: Alabama,
Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, Missouri, New
Jersey, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Wisconsin
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