Piecing together a business strategy

By LYNNETTE HINTZE

Experiential tourism boosts Bigfork quilt shop

The Daily Inter Lake

Starting a specialty shop in a seasonal resort town is a little more complicated than the notion, "If you build it, they will come."

Lynn Stalowy was well aware of that when she opened Bigfork Bay Cotton Co. a year ago. The full-service quilting shop sells high-end quilting thread and patterns online (www.bigforkbaycottonco.com) to boost sales during the shoulder seasons.

Stalowy also has tapped into a growing segment of the tourism industry - experiential tourism.

Experiential tourism allows visitors to be active participants in a specific experience or activity that draws people to a destination.

The recent annual Montana Shop Hop illustrates the idea. Forty-six quilt shops in Montana joined forces to offer lavish prizes to quilters who stopped at the shops and got their "passport" stamped for verification. The state was divided into "circles of friends," and participants had to stop at all the shops in one circle to be eligible for the grand prize.

During the Shop Hop - not a new concept in the quilting world - quilt shops put their best foot forward, showing quilters the latest products and offering memorable fabric shopping experiences.

"We got a lot of traffic from the Shop Hop," Stalowy said. "It's hard to quantify because we haven't been in business that long, but quilters like to make an event of quilt shopping for the weekend."

One busload of quilters from Missoula stopped at the Bigfork shop before continuing on to shops in Great Falls.

"The ultimate goal is to get on people's radars," she said.

QUILTING HAS become a $3.3 billion business in the United States, national surveys show. And the number of quilters has nearly doubled over the past decade, from 14 million in 1997 to more than 27 million.

DP Research Solutions conducted an in-depth survey and learned that the average dedicated quilter is a 59-year-old woman, well-educated and affluent. She spends an average of $2,304 annually on quilting.

The popularity of quilting was integral to Stalowy's decision to open a year-round shop in seasonal Bigfork.

"Thirty years ago you wouldn't have seen a freestanding quilt shop," she said. "Now there's an entire directory of quilt shops (Quilters' Travel Companion).

"Quilting is really big in Montana, and the talent is incredible," Stalowy noted. "This area draws artistic people."

STALOWY HAD intended to operate a quilting-related Internet business when she and husband, John, relocated from the Chicago suburbs to Bigfork. Like many Flathead transplants, they bought property a few years ago and started spending more and more time here.

She secured a distributorship for Aurifil thread, a top-of-the-line quilting thread made in Italy.

"I was going to have an Internet business, then I thought how much fun it would be to have a shop," she said.

Once she took the plunge and committed to opening the shop on Montana 35 across from Bethany Lutheran Church, she looked for ways to market the business.

A large workshop behind the quaint shop offers ample space for classes, a drawing card to acquaint quilters with the store.

Stalowy tried her hand at operating a vendor booth at a recent international quilt trade show in Salt Lake City and took home the award for best booth. The shop's unique quilting patterns were an immediate hit at the show.

Stalowy teams up with artists - some local and some out of state - to license individual art designs. The artists, in turn, get involved in the fabric selection, and the patterns become a collaborative effort.

"We went to market with 15 patterns and we'll work on nine to 12 new patterns to introduce at each market," she said.

Traci Marvel, sales and marketing director for Bigfork Bay Cotton Co., does much of the research to "seek out new artists" for pattern designs.

"As a business, we hope the patterns and thread will get us through the winter," Stalowy said.

The Stalowys are on the verge of adding another dimension to the quilt shop that stands to greatly increase the appeal of the business as an experiential tourism stop. John is a member of the Glacier Woodturners Club and is building a workshop that will be equipped with lathes and other woodworking equipment.

The idea is to give men something to do while their wives or companions are shopping for quilting supplies. They'll package quilting and woodworking workshops together as a destination experience.

"Now there will be something for the guys to do," she said, adding that most men wile away the time on the shop's porch swing or wait patiently on a couch inside.

Traffic is starting to pick up at the shop, Stalowy has noticed. It will build until the season is in full swing around the Fourth of July holiday.

Stalowy said she's fortunate to have "great sales reps who come to us" to supply the latest in fabrics. Among her biggest sellers are Oriental fabrics, many made in Japan, and fabrics with Western motifs.

Still on Stalowy's to-do list is becoming a certified quilt appraiser. No one that she knows of in Montana does quilt appraising, she said.

"I'd like to date and value old quilts" and new, intricately designed quilts, she said. "Many people don't insure them properly."

She has a personal collection of antique quilts, assembled through the years, that she'd like to replicate as time allows.

Stalowy figured out early on that it takes many venues, some tried and true, some innovative, to piece together a successful business.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by e-mail at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com