Seven women team at BeYoutiful store

 

Seven Spokane-area women, six of them who are subleasing space, have teamed up to open a new bath and beauty store in the NorthTown Mall, at 4750 N. Division. 

The 1,300-square-foot store, called BeYoutiful Bath Bombs & More, is located on the mall’s first floor in a space that a Yankee Candle store formerly occupied. 

Jessie Veselka is the owner of BeYoutiful and sells a line of all-natural skin care bath bombs, which are hard packed mixtures of dry ingredients that bubble when wet, adding scents, oils, and colors to bath water.

She says each bath bomb is customized, and made in store where customers can watch the process. 

Veselka says BeYoutiful, which opened in early July, showcases not just her company’s merchandise but that of six other local business women who sublease spaces from her. The store has no other employees. 

The six other shop owners include Heather Haneberg, owner of Valley Candles; Robin Peltier, owner of Clementine & Agnes; Kristin Hoover, owner of Peace Love & Bath Products; Lisa Katz, owner of Healing Stone Foundry; Alexis Huttenmaier, owner of Bookworm Designs & Signs; and Liz Cameron, owner of Lizzy Bae’s Handmade Natural Bath & Body Products.

 “My idea was to give local businesses that showcase items at seasonal craft shows and events the opportunity to sell them year-round,” says Veselka.   

While each owner knows their own products best, Veselka says all the women are happy to promote other products within the store to help maximize sales. 

She says so far the business has been doing well.  “Customers love us and are constantly telling us they hope we never leave,” she says. “We’ve already been offered a location in the Spokane Valley Mall, but that probably won’t open until next year.” 

Starting in September, Veselka says two new vendors also will be joining the store’s NorthTown mall space—a local men’s line called Northwest Man products and a home and beauty décor company called Flourish. 

—LeAnn Bjerken

 

Replay Music set to close next month

Len Volpe, who owns Replay Music at 1927 W. Northwest Blvd., says he’s retiring and plans to close the business on Sept. 9, exactly 20 years after he opened it.

 “Overall, it’s been good,” Volpe says of his decision back then to leave a career in automotive sales for one selling used instruments at reduced prices to students and aspiring musicians.

Volpe says he doesn’t know the exact number of instruments remaining in his inventory, which he is liquidating, but instruments are selling quickly as word has spread that he’s closing.

The majority of instruments remaining are guitars. Volpe says his inventory mix also includes trombones and saxophones, flutes and clarinets, and a host of string instruments.

Volpe and his wife, Eve Hopkins, own the entire 4,000-square-foot, multitenant building, called Audubon Place, where the store is located. Six businesses, counting Replay Music, and one residential apartment are located in the building. Volpe originally opened the business at 107 E. Third, near downtown Spokane, and it moved to its current location in 2006.

He says the couple expects to have the building paid off by the end of the year and will remain the landlords. Replay Music occupies a quarter of the total building space.

Says Volpe, “I haven’t offered the business for sale, but I would entertain the idea if someone approached.”

—Kevin Blocker

 

Security business changes its name

 

A Spokane-based cybersecurity consulting and training company that had been doing business as IT Training Solutions has changed its name to Stronger International Inc., says Heather Stratford, its CEO.

The name change, which took effect on Aug. 1, is intended to reflect the company’s mission better, she says.

The company’s services include virtual trainings and consulting on issues such as ransomware, ethical hacking, and cybercrime prevention.

“That’s where the branding of IT Training Solutions really kept us in a box,” says Stratford. 

She says the business originally aimed to help people hone their information-technology skills and certify for career advancement. 

“When we saw the beginning of state-sponsored actors in cybercrime,” she says, using the example of North Korea attacking Sony, “all of a sudden, our mission as a company took on a new and important dimension where we went just from helping people hone their skills to really being a force to help organizations become stronger through cybersecurity.”

Stronger International occupies about 600 square feet of space at 400 S. Jefferson, Ste. 319, she says.

While the business has many contractors internationally, it employs six full-time employees, three of whom are in Spokane, says Stratford.

—Samantha Peone

 

Fairchild storage picks up U-Haul 

 

Fairchild Mini Storage, at 1529 S. Craig in Airway Heights, is a new neighborhood U-Haul dealer, the Phoenix-based moving and self-storage rental company has announced.

As a U-Haul outlet, Fairchild Mini Storage will offer rental trucks, trailers, towing equipment, support rental items, boxes and in-store pick-up for boxes, U-Haul says in a press release.

Store operator Leroy Mattson couldn’t be reached for comment. Fairchild Mini Storage is located on the southeast corner at the intersection of U.S. 2 and Craig Road.

Using a U-Haul truck-sharing distribution system, neighborhood dealerships have access to a larger fleet of trucks and trailers than they could otherwise access on an individual basis, the company says.

U-Haul’s rental trucks come in sizes ranging from pickups and cargo vans to 26-foot moving trucks large enough to haul the contents of a four-bedroom house, it says.

Fairchild Mini Storage’s hours of operation are Monday through Saturday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. After hours drop-off is also available for customers.

—Kevin Blocker