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In The Beginning:
In May 1999, I found out I was pregnant. At the age of 43, no
less !!! I already had three boys aged 24, 13 and 12. I wasn't
prepared for this. Noah was supposed to be born on 01/01/2000 (A
millennium baby!)
During the months of my pregnancy, I discovered there was not a
single store that carried baby furniture or baby equipment in the entire Myrtle
Beach area. I wound up ordering my crib out of the J.C. Penney's catalog and
made a trip to Charleston (the closest Babies r Us) to purchase my car seat and
stroller.
Not really knowing the direction I was going, I leased a small
space at the North Myrtle Beach Flea Market and started collecting used baby
things to resell. I opened for business in January 2000. Noah was only
days old!!!
One year into "Noah's Ark Baby Shop", business was booming.
I knew I needed to expand, so that we could be open more than on weekends.
With the help of my dear friend Martie, we found the perfect location to launch
a new fully operational store on
Hwy 17 in North Myrtle Beach. While the new location continued to grow and
expand, I continued to work the flea market on the weekends for 5 more years.
One of the great things about owning my own business was being
able to bring Noah to work with me. There was always a crib or swing for
Noah to use, it was the perfect match to be a full time working mom. The
first person I hired was my good friend Diana. We were both due on January 1,
but, her daughter Samantha was born January 3, 2000.
So, as two new moms with two new babies, we went to work
building a business selling all types of baby products. To fill up the
store, we purchased what's called pallet products. These were new things from
department stores that were either returns or clearance items. I went to a
warehouse and bought pallets of mostly baby things and we would sort through,
put together and fix things to sell.
As time went by and the kids grew up, the store grew, also.
We started adding products from Baby Ganz®,
Russ Berrie®,
Kids Preferred®,
and Unique Tots®.
By the end of 2006, we had outgrown our current facility. A great opportunity
presented itself with the availability of a space just two doors down from our
present location. We moved the entire store contents between Christmas and New
Years 2006.
With our much larger floor space, we now offer the full
line of nursery furniture from Stanley®
Furniture Co. called youngAmerica®.
This line of "built to grow" nursery furniture exceeds the highest
standards of quality, safety and flexibility.
Also, we added Melissa and Doug®.
This company makes a great line of developmental toys and puzzles. We
added most requested items, like shopping cart covers, baby beach tents
and tub toys.
So, here we are in 2008. Noah will be 9 in December and
entering the third grade. My, how time has flown. Eight wonderful
years later, the store is a family run business. When you visit the
store, you might find Mark doing paper work, Debbie or Terri hanging
clothes and kids everywhere!!!
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