After three decades in retail, Favorite Thing Boutique owner calls it a career
Oct. 1—Natasha Athens intends to roller skate, swim and bicycle her way into retirement after she finishes her retail career with what she said is a "heartbreaking ending" to her clothing and costume shop in downtown Keene.
"I'm from the '80s when I roller skated and roller skated, and my retirement dream that I've put into play is that I'm moving near a roller-skating rink," she said. "I'm going out of [Keene before] the winter. I haven't picked my destination yet, but wherever it's going to be, it'll be [close to] ... a roller-skating rink."
Athens planned to run Favorite Things Boutique and moved into the space at 18 West St. in November 2020, taking over what was previously a children's clothing boutique. But, she said the timing of her business was poor with the pandemic ongoing.
"My plan was to have costumes, jewelry and a little photo booth and then liquidate all the merchandise from the other store," Athens said. "COVID affected us all in different ways, and when you hadn't really been in business prior, people didn't really know about you."
After she opened the boutique, Athens mostly sold items online via Facebook Marketplace and eBay. She said the space was mostly used to house her inventory.
Now, she's looking to close up shop in the coming weeks, having opened the space to the public in spring of this year with the intent to sell off everything she had. She plans to be open through the Gathering of the Gourds (a scaled-down version of the Keene Pumpkin Festival) on Oct. 22, after which she will end her lease and make plans to immediately move out of Keene.
Everything in the shop is being sold at a discount, and she plans to set up a Halloween photo booth for visitors to take a spooky snapshot with a poster of horror host Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, portrayed by Cassandra Peterson.
"I'm selling Halloween house decorations, pictures and a huge inventory of Christmas things," Athens said.
Anything not sold to store visitors is being handed off to an auctioneer as part of a liquidation sale where she committed to selling off any remaining inventory to a private buyer.
Athens said she moved to Keene in 2016 from Framingham, Mass., to be a caretaker for her ailing father, who lived in Gardner, Mass., and to help move him to Brattleboro, where her sister lived. Before the boutique, she ran another business named Favorite Things that served as a dorm-decorating service for Keene State College students.
"That was really successful because I had very inexpensive furniture and [students] could just lift it into their dorms," Athens said. "I stayed Favorite Things so anybody that had found me before could also find me here."
Athens said she's retiring from a more than 30-year career in retail after previous success in Massachusetts, where she said she operated a chocolate shop named Castle of Candy in Natick and a T-shirt-cart business in Natick Mall, Burlington Mall in Burlington, Mass., and Solomon Pond Mall in Marlborough, Mass.
While she cited COVID as the direct reason why her West Street venture failed, she had advice for any prospective business owner: Seek the 97 percent of customers who will make purchases in determining what type of business you run. She said more specific businesses that appeal to only 3 percent of customers have a higher rate of failure, an issue she said her store might have also suffered from.
"If you open a golf store, only 3 percent of the population in a given day in a mall golf," she said as an example. "Of that 3 percent, how many are going to buy? A golf store or any business in the 3 percent, like a wedding store, would be in the 3 percent. Most mall customers aren't getting married — they're shopping."
Trisha Nail can be reached at 352-1234, extension 1436, or tnail@keenesentinel.com. Follow her on Twitter at @byTrishaNail.
