Bella Sky Gifts and Adams Therapeutic Massage Team Up
The two businesses are now located side by side at 64 Summer.
Although the two Summer Street businesses have found success on their own, owners Ashley Priester and Sarah Raschdorf decided to relocate under the same roof and utilize the natural synergy between their two stores.
"I went into Ashley's store last summer with some flowers and I introduced myself and asked what she thought about working together to try to promote a more positive atmosphere in our community," Raschdorf, owner of Adams Therapeutic said. "That's what we have been trying to do ever since."
Raschdorf was formerly located on Armory Court and Priester, owner of Bella Sky Gifts, was located at a different Summer Street location. Over the past two months, the two have relocated to 64 Summer St.
"We wanted to pick a place that would allow us to have a storefront together," Priester said. "We were always at each other's places anyways and now we can just go back and forth."
Raschdorf, who has practiced massage therapy for more than 10 years, said her new space is much larger and her new therapy room is double the size. She said she also has more room to sell her handmade bath and beauty supplies, semi-precious stone jewelry, aromatherapy accessories and much more.
Like Raschdorf, Priester also makes a point to sell mostly handmade and local items in her artisan shop.
"I really want the experience to be personalized like with weddings, people can have things personalized through my store and they can save all of that money on shipping," she said. "I feel like right now people want to buy local and small batch items so now is the right time to have this kind of business."
Priester added that her new space may not necessarily be larger, but it has a better "vibe" with more natural light. She said it is a better space to hold her weekly do-it-yourself nights.
She also said having their stores right next to each other allows them to advertise for each other and be champions of each other's products.
"Adams is tough and is not easy owning a business by any means, so it is nice to have somebody on your side," she said. "We help each other like this morning, someone bought a bracelet from me and I told them they should check out next door. They walked over to get some essential oils for the lava beads."
Raschdorf agreed and said they are trying to expand this business model to all Adams' businesses.
"We try to send people off to other businesses and we want to see more business in Adams and the more people that see that it is possible they may try to make a go of it," Raschdorf said. "We want to create a more positive atmosphere in town and we can all work together."
Priester said they have teamed up with other businesses and held "scavenger hunts" encouraging people to check out other stores in town.
"There are some neat little stores, but it takes everybody kind of shopping at them on the regular to change things," she said. "We want to remind people to shop small and shop locally. We are here, and we aren't going anywhere."
Priester's and Raschdorf's message goes further than just local business and they want to turn around some of the negativity in Adams.
The two created the Adams Proud Facebook page to act almost as a foil to some of the negativity found on another Facebook page, Adams Informed.
"We are either working on stuff to promote our businesses or working on stuff that we hope will engage the community," Priester said. "We need to change that mentality that nothing can be successful here and it is not always easy, but we are still going."
Raschdorf agreed and said there is plenty to be proud of in Adams.
"I think people get in that space and they aren't actually checking out what's downtown and what is happening here," she said. "They claim nothing is there but take a look because there are some cool things in town."
More information can be found on Bella Sky Gifts and Adams Therapeutic Massage & Boutique on their respective Facebook pages.
Tags: business changes, relocation,
