Terie Loomis
Sometimes businesses can gain fresh insight with a new perspective. Just ask Terie Loomis, owner of Silver Liningz Boutique.
In June, Loomis opened the doors on her Front Street shop down and across from where she'd been a few years earlier. On Labor Day, she was in the shop to gauge what traffic would be like on a day she's typically closed.
Silver Liningz specializes strictly in women's apparel, carrying tops, jeans, dresses and intimate clothing, along with jewelry, accessories and other gift items. Loomis describes the style as "boutique-y," with dressier clothing and items that could be worn for a "night out."
The clientele ranges from young mothers to grandmothers, Loomis said, with teenagers starting to come in. There is, however, one demographic that might find it hard to shop in her store.
"I have very few things for men. I have men walking in saying, 'Oh! This isn't for me,'" she said with a laugh. "Well, it is if you're shopping for a woman."
Clientele have found it refreshing to be able to come into the store, peruse and try on different selections, Loomis said, as it can be frustrating to order online and have it delivered, only to find it doesn't fit. Out of all her inventory, she said leggings are probably the most popular item.
"[Terie] has great taste, so there's always a variation of different styles," said Candice Muse, who has been shopping at Silver Liningz for about three years. "You can always find something that will fit you."
Being the only woman in her house, Muse said she will stop into the shop when she needs retail therapy.
"Normally, I don't go in looking for anything in particular. I go in for a mental checkout," Muse said. "Her style is frilly and girly. I live in a house full of boys, and they don't want to do anything girly."
Muse said she will often go into the boutique and spend 30 minutes just "chitchatting" with Loomis. "She is incredible," Muse said.
Loomis originally opened Silver Liningz in 2017 in the Churchill Building on Front Street where Compass Line Gift Shop is now located. From there, she moved to the back of the building into a larger space. Then COVID-19 hit.
"We definitely saw an affect on the business in that people didn't go shopping, myself included. People would go grocery shopping one day out of the week," Loomis said. "You'd mask up, and you'd run down to the grocery, then you'd run home and stay home for the week. The same thing with the business."
The shop was opened a few times during the pandemic, but Loomis' husband, Mike, had relocated to Kenai for his job. Rather than be separated, they decided to shut down the boutique temporarily while the family joined him in Kenai. They returned in March of this year and moved the business to its current location.
Small business problems are not those Loomis thought she would ever have to contend with.
"I was a paralegal, and I started with a law firm for a little bit. Then I worked in the electric utility in the engineering department for 17 years," she said. "So, I had no experience in a boutique at all."
Her daughter, Antonya, opened a boutique in Kenai, and that was about as close as she had been to retail. After moving to Wrangell in 2016, Loomis thought opening a boutique shop here would be fun since there wasn't anything similar in town.
"I didn't have anything to do. I homeschool my kids ... my husband works away, so I kind of needed, I hate to say, 'hobby,' but that's how it started," Loomis said. "I talked with my daughter, and she gave me a lot of input and put me in the direction of inventory."
And with the pandemic, trade shows and various other methods shopkeepers might have used to find new product were put on hold. Loomis said many started using applications like Zoom and Facebook Live to show new items, making it possible to keep stock fresh.
"This year's been kind of tough. Sometimes a lot of my orders are backordered and it's because of COVID," she said. "There's people who aren't working, there are [companies] that are understaffed, and that goes across the board. You see about it in restaurants and things like that, but it's all over. Even in the clothing industry they may not have the people to make the clothes or ship the clothes, you know, there's something out there causing the delay."
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