Crowd descends on Once Upon A Child

Battle Creek Enquirer 1/22/2010

Jessica Cable and Jordy King shivered as they stood in the parking lot off Beckley Road on Thursday morning. About an hour later, however, Cable was all smiles as she loaded a bassinet, bouncer swing and other baby items into the back of a car.

"All together, it was like, 90 bucks," the Battle Creek mother-to-be said. "It was great."

Cable and King were among about 100 customers who waited in line for the grand opening of the Once Upon A Child consignment shop, located in the Target Plaza at 5700 Beckley Road.

The store -- which buys, sells and trades new and gently used children's toys, clothes, furniture and accessories -- is one of about 250 franchise locations in the U.S. and Canada owned by the Minneapolis-based Winmark Corporation.

Thursday was the first day customers could buy items, but the Battle Creek store actually opened Dec. 2 to begin stocking up on inventory purchased from clients, said Karen Walls, who owns the store with her husband, Scott Walls.

The Quincy couple said they decided they wanted to open a franchise -- their first store -- after visiting another location with their daughter, a single mother, in Fort Wayne, Ind.

"We fell in love with the concept that you get a gently used item for less money, at a price that everybody can afford," Walls said. "So two years later, we opened a store."

The store sells items at prices typically 60 to 70 percent less than the same new item in a retail store, said Mary Klapperich, a new store developer for the franchise.

Once Upon A Child also purchases gently used items for 30 to 50 percent of what they will sell it for, Klapperich said. The store does not, however, purchase items with tears, stains, missing parts, are broken, have been recalled or that contain lead. For safety purposes, she said they also do not buy or sell used car seats.

The crowd Thursday was partly due to the fact that people who sold items to the store over the past month were allowed to browse the inventory. Many returned with their eyes set on specific items, and fortunately, Klapperich said, only one minor problem arose as two women grabbed the same bassinet at the same time.

The first woman to the register won, but she said there will be other chances.

"The unique thing about our business is that we don't know what's going to come into the store because we buy new inventory every day," Klapperich said. "So when we get another one, we can take care of that customer."

Lori Holcomb can be reached at 966-0675 or lholcomb@gannett.com.