Living & Giving listed among top US home accessory stores
Owners of the gift boutique credit relationships with customers and suppliers alike for their success.
‘They know us, we have so many valuable relationships with our vendors. It’s the exact same relationship you have with your customers over the years.’ Lisa Landry Living & Giving Lifestyle
A Rome store has been named one of America’s top 50 home accessory retailers in the country. Living & Giving Lifestyle at 401 Broad St. received the honor from Home Accents Today — a national specialty retail website.
Lisa Landry at Living & Giving said successful retailing is all about relationships. The new honor for Living & Giving Lifestyle also illustrates that it’s more than just good relationships with customers. Landry said she thinks the store was nominated for the honor by one or more of its vendors.
“They know us, we have so many valuable relationships with our vendors. It’s the exact same relationship you have with your customers over the years,” Landry said.
The list of stores included in the listing range from furniture stores to home décor boutiques and interior design retailers.
Living & Giving tracks sales by department and gifts are the No. 1 item at the Broad Street business.
“People think of us as a gift shop,” Landry said. “It started with plants and the fact that we combine plants with gifts is what makes us unique in the market.”
When her business partner Sheree White came on board they added clothing to the mix. “That’s when things kind of took off for us,” Landry said. “It indicated to us that our store was more than just someplace where somebody would come in to get a Polo.”
At that point, the store morphed into what Landry calls a boutique department store.
The 50 stores honored by Home Accents Today come from 26 states and include only one other shop in Georgia, Claire Bell Home and Chic Abode Interiors in Chamblee. Thirty-eight of the 50 stores are sole location businesses, while 12 others have multiple sites.