We opened our retail shop, or “factory store” as we now call it, a year and a half ago. At the time, we had gone grossly overbudget on our renovation costs for building out our space, so when it came time to deal with
Before - The Love Shack
signage, we decided to wait and spend that money later. The result was that the outside of our building was a bland beige with very little to draw attention to it.
Fast forward to the present. We decided to bite the bullet and invest in some better signage. We got a recommendation on a good sign guy, Gary Blodgett. We knew it was meant to be when we discovered that the name of his business was “The Color Shack.” We had always called our little retail spot The Love Shack.
We had several ideas for what to add, and went back and forth on whether to do just a couple of them or to just go for it and do it all at once. We ended up deciding to go for it.
We added several elements, a larger logo to the gable on the front of the building, as well as descriptive signs that say “Fresh Baked Cookies” and “Frozen Cookie Dough.” Even though we had a good sized metal “Vermont Cookie Love” logo sign out in the front of the building, people had commented that they didn’t know what we did.
We had gone back and forth also about whether it would be appropriate to use our nickname for our shop officially. I mean, “The Love Shack” could be misconstrued. But after a long time of referring to it that way, we felt it could work as long as the graphics were appropriately playful. Thanks to our beloved graphic designers, Gotham City Graphics, we felt sure that they could make that happen.
The Final Sign
We decided not only on adding “The Love Shack” but also we opted to add a number of colorful dots to the building in line with the dot motif on our packaging and our website. The final sign – the Love Shack – was installed just two weeks ago. Not to be cheesy, but we LOVE these signs, and so do our customers.
If I had a nickel for every time a customer has come in these last two weeks and said “I’ve driven by this place a million times and finally decided to stop…” – well, actually, I kind of DO have a nickel for every time! The very day the last sign went up was our biggest sales day ever. The base line sales level has risen by at least 50% in these last two weeks. It doesn’t appear to be a coincidence, and now we are kicking ourselves for taking so long to make it happen.
Chock it up to experience. The next time we do this, if there is a next time, we will know better.
