Gearing Up for the Holiday Season

Filed Under: Erin on September 8, 2009

One of my first tasks when I started with GROW in the fall of 2004 was to help assist with the Lincoln holiday kiosk. That’s right, not a store, but a kiosk. It sat in Westfield Gateway Mall approximately where you’ll now find a cellular phone salesman near JC Penney’s. In fact, this seems so long ago that the pictures I took were with … shall we dare say it …. film …. a technology of the past.

At that time, GROW didn’t have a point of sale system either. Sales were recorded in a carefully maintained spreadsheet, and tax was figured using a calculator (considering food items are not taxed, and other items are, you can imagine that it can get complicated).

In 2004, we had approximately 185 members, compared to the 308 we have today. The small kiosk offered a variety of GROW products, including food and gift items.  That first kiosk was successful enough that the next year we graduated to a full store.

Things have certainly changed in five years. GROW now has a sophisticated point of sale system to track sales, we have nearly doubled our members (and products!), and instead of people asking “what is GROW Nebraska”, they now ask “when is the GROW Nebraska store coming back”? We were pleased when the Westfield Gateway staff told us this year that we are the number one asked about holiday store for them. What an honor!

Besides the Lincoln Holiday Store, we also now have two year-round retail locations in Kearney and Grand Island, and an eCommerce store that boasts nearly 600 products for sale online 24/7.

With the success of our Lincoln Holiday Store this year we have decided to take it a step further, opening in mid-October and staying open through mid-January, so those of you who like to get an early start on your holiday shopping can stop by and see us early. We are located in the same location as last year, in the main cooridor of the Westfield Gateway Mall (between the carousel and Sears).

We hope that our small kiosk turned store will continue to thrive and GROW as the years go on. We hope to see you there!