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Aug 11 2010
Baby Steps
Keep your current customers happy while cultivating new ones. Sounds simple enough. But as any business owner will tell you, it’s a constant tightrope act. Still, it’s one that Robar is making look deceptively easy as it approaches 20 years in the baby business. Thanks to the depth of product in its mainstay collection and […]
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Jun 3 2010
Fancy That
Spend time with Joan Calabrese, and it’s quickly apparent that designing feminine frocks for the special moments in a girl’s life is her passion. Calabrese has marketed her line of elegant dresswear for more than 30 years—and it all started over a fortuitous dinner at her home. Tom Marotta, then vice president of couture at […]
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Apr 26 2010
Redefining Elegance
An elegant baby gift doesn’t have to be boring. At least, that’s the underlying message from Elegant Baby, a Burlington, N.C.-based vendor that can be traced back to the ’60s but has recently rebranded itself as more sexy than stodgy. Thanks in part to president and CEO Yates Hooper—the son of the founder, who came […]
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Mar 1 2010
Little Me, Big Business
“When we bought the company, we thought some of the goods were undervalued and we wanted to lower the price points,” explained division president Jeff Glick. By leveraging Mamiye’s strength in sourcing, he reported that Little Me was able to decrease its retail prices by 15 to 20 percent without taking away from—and even ultimately […]