Cheshirebusinessowner set to bring her nearly three decade retail career to a close
Jul. 14—"I will miss the people who were my customers," the 60-year-old Bruscino said. "You kind of feel like your a small part of their lives and their family events from all the times they have come in to buy gifts."
Bruscino opened her business at the end of 1993 in a store front at 178 Main St. in Cheshire. She was in that location for 11 years before moving to her current location in the Country Plaza at S1115 South Main St.
Bruscino didn't start her career in retail. She graduated from the University of Connecticut with a degree in mechanical engineering. She would later get a master's degree in business administration from the Hartford campus of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
Before launching her gift shop, Bruscino and her father worked in a family-owned manufacturing business where she rose to an executive level position in the company. Both Bruscino and her father left the business in 1993 in a dispute over the direction the company was taking.
Later that year, a friend from Waterbury who had been in the gift business suggested Bruscino might like a move into retail.
"I always liked the idea of working for myself," she said. And so it was that Elegant Touch was launched.
Retail experts contacted by Hearst Connecticut Media said that owning and operating a retail business across three decades is pretty rare.
"It's quite an accomplishment," said Tim Phelan, president of the Connecticut Retail Network, a statewide trade group. "To do that, you have to be adaptable to changes in customer behavior."
—
Ethiopian-Eritrean restaurant Teff to relocate within Stamford
—
Why Hartford's mayor thinks Brainard Airport should shut down
David Tomczyk, an associate professor of entrepreneurship and strategy at Quinnipiac University, said that according to U.S. Small Business Administration data, about 80 percent of small businesses have either been sold or shut down before they reach their fifth year of existence.
"To exist for nearly 30 years, that puts you in a very elite category," Tomczyk said.
It is critical for small retailers, he said, "to be able to get your name out there, particularly by word of mouth."
"You want to get to the point where people like what you're doing so much that they will tell other people about it," he said. "You have to offer more value to the customer than whatever the price is for what you are selling. To some extent you do that through customer service, greeting customers by by name and trying to understand what it is that they need."
The product mix at Elegant Touch over the years has included a little bit of everything: One-of-a-kind jewelry pieces, women's clothing accessories, housewares, fine collectibles and specialty foods. Since making her plans to close the store public last week, Bruscino has seen a steady stream of customers.
Among those customers this week was Carmi Kostolitz, who is one of Bruscino's neighbors.
"She kind and she always knows what the customer wants," Kostolitz said. "And she is so patient with customers: She never tries to push merchandise on people."
Bruscino said that she and her husband Ralph have discussed when to close the business for about a decade. But the right opportunity presented itself recently when the New Britain-based company her husband had worked for about 30 years closed.
The Bruscinos plan to move to Arizona later this year once they sell their Cheshire home and find a place to live in the Phoenix area.
