Fri, March 29, 2024

Local retailer expands, due to inflation

If you’re a parent, you’re familiar with this common scenario: you buy your kids clothes, and a few months later, they need new ones because the old ones no longer fit. With the current inflation rate at 8.5 percent, parents want to pay less for kids’ clothes.

Many have turned to consignment shops, such as Kid to Kid, for not only clothing but also toys and baby items. Shannon Unger owns two Kid to Kid stores in the CSRA: one in National Hills and another on Washington Road near Goodwill in Martinez.

She also owns two more Kid to Kid stores in the Atlanta area, as well as two local Uptown Cheapskate locations. Uptown Cheapskate is a thrift store that sells gently-used clothing, purses, and accessories.

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Unger said whenever the economy declines, she sees a sharp increase in sales in her stores. That’s what happened during both the 2008 financial crisis and the pandemic.

“People start to look for new ways to save money,” she said. “They feel like they need to stretch their dollars.”

Within the last year, business at the Martinez store has grown exponentially. Unger said out of Kid to Kid’s 95 stores in the U.S., Canada, and Portugal, the store ranks third in sales.

Kid to Kid’s Martinez store, located at 4088 Washington Road, is currently expanding from 3,000 square feet to 5,300 square feet. (Photo taken by Neil Gordon)

For that reason, she’s expanding her footprint by more than 40%, which she hopes to have completed by the end of this month or next month.

“We’re doing the whole expansion while the store stays open,” Unger said. “The construction kind of ebbs and flows depending on how busy we are.”

Unger plans to use the additional space for baby items, such as cribs and strollers. She also wants to make it easier for parents to walk around the store with kids in strollers. As a mother of five, Unger recalls avoiding some stores because their aisles were too narrow for a stroller.

“Right now, you’re constrained in how much you can put on the floor,” she said. “I’m excited about being able to offer more products in a comfortable space.”

Until 2017, Uptown Cheapskate was also housed in the same space, but once that store grew, Unger moved it down the street in the shopping center with Academy Sports + Outdoors. For now, she has no plans to expand the National Hills Kid to Kid location.

“Our lease is up in three years,” Unger said. “At that time, we’ll reconsider what we would like to do.”

For more information, visit kidtokid.com/location/evans/ or call 706-364-6408.

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