“The Concierge” comes to Village Pointe Mall in Colfax

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By LeAnn R. Ralph

COLFAX — One day before Christmas when April Northrup was working as the secretary at Colfax Elementary, a colleague asked “if they had any goat items.”

A friend raised goats, and the colleague was looking for something to give as a gift, April said.

April Northrup, along with her sister, Amanda Kikilas, and their mother, Peggy Northrup, operate “The Concierge” Home Decor & More located in the Village Pointe Mall on the south side of Colfax.

The Concierge opened in November on Small Business Saturday and is owned by Amanda Kikilas.

As it turned out, The Concierge was able to provide goat-themed items for April’s colleague.

During Christmas, someone else came in looking for cow items. The store has a variety of animal-themed items, including chickens, Amanda said.

“I always wanted to start a store. Then it was a matter of finding a space and then saving up enough money,” she said.

Amanda and April both enjoy decorating. Prior to accepting the position at Colfax Elementary, April worked for Goodwill Industries and set up a number of Goodwill’s boutiques.

While April works for the Colfax school district, Amanda works for the Elk Mound school district. Their mother, Peggy, is retired and is happy to have something to do, helping her daughters with the business venture.

“Colfax didn’t have anything like this,” Amanda said.

“We turned the building around in less than two months. The longest (process) was getting my sales permit from the Department of Revenue,” she said.

Getting the space set up for The Concierge involved finding furnishings, painting the interior and ordering items to stock the store.

The space where The Concierge is located was occupied originally by Midwest Physical Therapy, which moved out of the building about 10 years ago when the Colfax Health and Rehabilitation Center opened, and Midwest Physical Therapy was able to offer services out of the nursing home.

“We really worked hard. There were a lot of late nights and weekends,” Amanda said.

“My parents did a lot of work while we were at work, and then we would come here and join them. It helped that both of them are retired to help us get started,” she said.

In fact, Peggy Northrup had been looking for something to do. She had wanted to volunteer at a hospital gift shop, but volunteering at a hospital required a stack of paperwork, and before she could complete the paperwork, Amanda had made the decision to open The Concierge.

So Peggy Northrup did end up working at a gift shop, in a certain sense — just not the kind of gift shop she had first imagined.

Getting started

Amanda said she and her husband also own another business, so she had an idea of what would be involved and where to start on the legal end of organizing a business.

Opening The Concierge required research on different vendors and supplies, and then recently, Amanda ventured off to the Minneapolis Market, a wholesale event with thousands of vendors.

Many of the vendors at the Minneapolis event are from the Midwest, she said.

The advantage of going to a wholesale event is that you can actually see and feel the product and know what size it is, Amanda said.

Sometimes when you order an item from a wholesale website, the item is not the size that you had imagined it would be, she noted.

The Concierge will be adding some “higher end” items to the collection. Right now the most expensive piece in the store is $69, she said.

In addition to adding some higher end items, Amanda looked for items that customers had requested as well as adding some items that have been big sellers for the vendors at the Minneapolis event.

“We’ll add those to the store and see how those products do here,” she said.

Requests have included knickknack items, three-tiered trays and garden items. The round wooden plates have arrived, too, along with oval plates and higher-end vases, Amanda said.

The Concierge has some pictures, and mirrors have been added to the collection as well, she said.

The store offers wedding items, kids’ items, pet items, regular home decor, farmhouse decor, and items from the holiday season through spring are in stock right now, Amanda said.

People have come in who are redoing their offices, and people have come in looking for gifts, she said.

“Several people have come in who said it was nice to be able to get a gift here in Colfax and not have to drive to Eau Claire,” Amanda said, noting that she is always trying to think of new opportunities and new items to add to the collection.

Much to their surprise, The Concierge was even busy on Christmas Eve, with people stopping in to find last-minute gifts on their way here and there.

Amanda, April and Peggy then gift-wrapped the items for them.

Nursery items

Amanda says she is kind of fussy about children’s items.

“For the nursery and kid stuff, I didn’t want to carry things you could just go to Walmart and buy. We have some wooden toys and some bigger puzzles,” she said.

The Concierge has many nursery items that are hand-picked and available only through certain vendors. Someone came in the other day for a kid’s gift and was surprised to see there was a whole section, Amanda said.

Before Christmas, another person had come in and spied the children’s photo albums. When the woman saw the photo albums, she seized upon the idea of making a photo album for her grandchild.

The woman said the photo galleries of pictures online are nice, but it’s not the same as having a physical photo album, Amanda said.

“Like our mom made for us. We still have ours,” April said. 

Someone else came in who was holding a baby shower. The theme was “Under the Sea” and there were several items that worked, Amanda said.

“I try to think of every aspect possible. We even have a little dad corner,” she said.

Handmade

Almost all of the items — about 90 percent — are from Minnesota and Wisconsin, and many of them are handmade. The number one vendor in the store hand-makes all of the items offered at The Concierge in Wisconsin, Amanda said.

Another hand-made item that is on order are lip balms made with beeswax. Those, too, are made in Wisconsin. So are the cat treats and the dogs treats, which “are made in Glenwood City. Those were a huge seller during the holiday season,” she said, adding that she had just restocked cat and dog treats.

Valentine’s Day specials will be coming up. The Concierge has a great stock of Valentines and spring items. Gnomes have been popular too, and The Concierge has them for all seasons, Amanda said.

The biggest seller at Christmas were the globes that light up and play music. The store received a “surprise shipment” of more of the lighted globes just recently.

“They said they had cancelled the order in October, but then it shipped in January,” Amanda said.

And even though it is past the holiday season, she says they will keep the lighted globes out on the sales floor.

“We have sold three or four of them already,” Amanda said.

The Concierge also has Mother’s Day items, and in the dad’s corner, there are funny signs, bottle openers, tractor clocks, and some giant playing card signs that would work well for a home bar or a family room, she said.

Thinking ahead

Keeping the store stocked with appropriate items requires thinking four to six months ahead.

The vendors told Amanda that when she comes back to the Minneapolis Market in March, she should be ready to order for next Christmas.

The Concierge also has been working on a website that will be up and running soon so that people can order online if they wish. The website will let people see, too, the kinds of items carried in the store so they would know ahead of an actual visit to the store.

Amanda says she has been ordering every couple of weeks to try to keep items in stock.

“We are open for suggestions,” she said, noting that she has already had people call and ask for certain items, some of which she has been able to find and some she has not.

At any rate, Amanda said she will keep a list of requested items, and when she goes to vendor events, she will see if she can find those items.

“It was kind of scary starting a business. I told myself, ‘You can do it and fail, but at least you tried,’” Amanda said.

The Concierge is open Wednesday, Thursday and Friday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. and on Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Peggy opens the store on weekdays, and when April and Amanda are finished for the day at their respective school districts, they join their mother at the store.

The Concierge Home Decor & More is located at 225 Bremer Avenue, Suite 105, in Colfax.

For more information, call 715-704-6008.

Or you can e-mail the store — theconciergedecor@gmail.com.