The new owners of Tammy's Cool Things

Let me introduce myself. My name is Erica and I'm one of 3 owners of Tammy's Cool Things and Ting's Cool Things. I own the stores along with my brother Daniel and my sister in law, Ting. 

Before purchasing Tammy's from our stepmom back in 2016, Daniel and I had been living overseas in Taiwan. We had been teaching overseas for nearly 3 years at that point, previously teaching in China before moving to Taiwan. While in Taiwan, that is where my brother met his now wife, Ting. Ting decided to come and study in the US for a few months when we moved back, to see if she liked it. Not only did she like it, but I supposed she liked my brother enough to marry him and become his wife. 

After they got married, we were given the opportunity to purchase the store from our stepmom and father, in order to allow Tammy to retire and stop working. In March of 2016 is when we officially took over 100% of the ownership and operation of the store. It was a very interesting and exciting time. Never before had I owned my own business, having previously been a waitress and teacher, but I did have a lot of experience in retail.

Our mother Renee, also had her own store called "The Christmas Goose" for 20 years before closing down in 2011. In fact, many of the fixtures and cases are from my mother's original store, which my father and stepmom bought from her when she was closing up shop. I like to think of everything coming full circle now with my brother and I owning the store and continuing on the family tradition of being store owners. Growing up, I was often with my mother at her store, helping her unwrap inventory items or dust and clean. As I got older and was granted more responsibilities, I started working more and more until I turned 18 and headed off to college. Then I switched to waitressing to make extra money and helped my Mom when I could. I always loved The Goose as many locals called it. It was a holiday store, most Christmas items, but other seasonal decor as well. The store was also located on route 50 up in Queenstown, across the highway from the outlets. 

Once we took over, we made a lot of changes. Found new vendors, expanded the variety of items in the store and just stared trying out new things. Our most successful expansion has definitely been in adding crystals to our store. For many years customers had been asking for crystals but not knowing much about them, I wanted to be careful. I really enjoyed learning about crystals and finding cool and reliable vendors. It was a big learning curve in the beginning, but every year we get better and better. 

Now we are close to a decade owning the stores and it's been a wild ride. Every year we learn and grow. Meet new customers and make new friends. I look forward to seeing what we are able to accomplish as time goes on. Will we do a third location? Will we transform into a dispensary one day? I have a lot of people ask me these questions and I don't know. I think it just depends on the trends of the time. How people purchase and buy things changes as well. I hope we are able to stay around for a long time. The support of our customers and their loyalty continues on and motivates me to make this business successful for years to come.