In Business of Home’s series Shop Talk, we chat with owners of home furnishings stores across the country to hear about their hard-won lessons and challenges, big and small. This week, we spoke with Kansas City, Missouri–based interior designer Katie Laughridge, owner and president of the furniture and home decor shop Nell Hill’s.
Nell Hill’s is named for the grandmother of the store’s original owner, who launched the business as a fancy food shop in 1981. On the hunt for a new career opportunity, Laughridge—who grew up in Kansas City shopping at the store and later pursued work in marketing—took over the small company with her husband, Brandon, in December 2018. The pair had just over a year to get their bearings (and get to know the vendors and five dozen staffers they inherited) before the pandemic hit. Ahead, she explains why she was interested in Nell Hill’s, what she’s decided to change, and the aspects of retail that blew her mind.
What was your career like before the shop?
I went to school for business with an emphasis in marketing, and right out of school, my husband and I moved to California and I got a job doing marketing for a small health food company. It was family-owned, and it provided a lot of interesting insight into running a small business. From there, I did marketing for a small textiles company called Island Batik out of San Diego, in a similar environment. We produced batik fabric that we sold to the quilting world—a dream job for me. We moved back [to Kansas City], and I was working from home for Island Batik for a couple of years before Nell Hill’s became an opportunity. I’ve had two dream jobs. I feel so fortunate.
How did you learn about Nell Hill’s, and how did you become involved?
It’s a little bit older than I am, and it was a place where we shopped. I had always been a fan girl and loved the brand. My husband’s mom actually was a sales rep there back in the day, so my husband has memories of driving with her to a sales call to meet with Mary Carol Garrity, the former owner. We heard about the opportunity [to buy the company] through a business broker. It was one of those things that my husband and I often talked about: “OK, we’d love to buy a business. What does that look like?” It had to be something that we loved and enjoyed and could be really passionate about; something that meant something to our community here in Kansas City. [Nell Hill’s] just ticked all the boxes.
Is the old team still involved at all, or is it fully your business now?
It’s fully mine; however, I inherited the entire team. Over the last seven years, people have retired and moved on, and that happens naturally, but I still have a handful of people who I was fortunate enough to inherit, and who are still doing amazing things for the business.
How would you describe the overall aesthetic of the store?
We say we’re new traditional: rooted in traditional aesthetics but made for today. Lots of performance fabrics, lots of traditional lines, but in updated colors and patterns, which I think really speaks to our primarily Midwestern audience.
Is there a certain type of product you are known for, or a certain category?Custom upholstery is our specialty. While we do sell quite a bit right off the floor, a lot of what we do is custom. In addition to that, our custom bedding and pillows; we are over the top with our pillows, most of which we make by hand in our on-site workroom.
Is your customer base the trade, walk-ins, or regulars who have been coming for decades?
Definitely the latter. We don’t do a ton to the trade. My design manager and I have been talking about that for the last seven years, and we’re in the works to develop something there, but it’s mostly generations of customers who have shopped with us for decades. New customers come via social media or word-of-mouth, but we’re really direct-to-consumer. Because we carry such a wide variety of merchandise, we have everyone from “I’m just looking for a new tchotchke or trinket to take home and make me happy, a little retail therapy” to “I need a whole home of new furniture; here’s thousands and thousands of square feet—help me fill it.” We cater to all those people, which I feel goes against what you read about in most business books, where [the standard advice is]: “Have a really narrow target audience and just go after ’em.” It works for us. Demographically speaking, it’s typically older females, but we’re trying to reach that next generation.
Tell me about your sourcing process. I imagine you inherited some of the vendors too.
I inherited a number of amazing vendors and relationships, and I am so grateful that so many of our vendors just extended to me what the former owner had developed. Which means a lot in our business—we buy from lines that we know take good care of us and help us solve issues when we have them.
We’re always looking for what’s new, interesting and unique. So we do go to High Point Market for furniture. We just got back from High Point, where we were buying furniture primarily for the spring. I feel like we could stay there for a full month and still not see everything, but we’re fast and furious when we go. We bounce between Atlanta and Dallas for accessories—we do a lot of Christmas and holiday decor, so that’s usually where we’re sourcing those things. I love being out in the wild and discovering new things. I love to go to New York, just for fun with my husband, and find new things that way. Occasionally we’ll go to a new show, [like] Shoppe Object. I love buying. I think it’s a really fun part of what we do.
What is a favorite vendor, or favorite relationship?
CR Laine takes great care of us. [They have] a knowledgeable rep and a responsive team, and help us resolve customer service issues on top of having quality, great-looking product. They’re generally a great team that we really enjoy working with—shout-out to their [vice president of merchandising and marketing] Holly, and our customer relations gal, Cathy.
And The MT Company. The gals we get to work with there are just so lovely. That’s a newer relationship for us, but we’re so excited to represent their line. We walked into their showroom for the first time, and we weren’t really looking for new lines, but we saw their fabrics and felt, This was meant to be. We’re such textile people. We felt like they got us, for sure.
What’s your favorite product in the store right now?
I’m a sucker for a wingback chair. Right now, especially after having come back from Market, we saw a lot of rush seating, and that just speaks to my personal aesthetic. There’s a chair from CR Laine called the June chair, which has a frame that is handmade in Italy and upholstery done in the United States. It’s just this beautiful, cottagey chair with wood rush and upholstery—a combination of all these things that I love. I need to find a place in my home for them, because I just love them.
What is the design scene like in Kansas City?
We have a very active design community here. As I mentioned, we don’t do a lot to-the-trade. I think what our local designers come to us for is something quick when they’re about to finish a project; they just need things in stock that they can purchase. We have a lot of amazing designers, genuinely awesome people, who are really talented [in styles] from very traditional to more contemporary.
How much, if anything, did you change about the branding or the merchandise when you took over Nell Hill’s?
I went into it with the desire to not change a whole lot, because I fell in love with the brand for what it was at the time. I wanted to uphold that warmth of the brand, the feeling that you’re just among friends. Of course, over time, things do evolve, and because textiles are one of the things I’m most passionate about, I would say we’ve done a lot in the realm of textiles. We picked up cut-yardage programs like Thibaut, Schumacher, and Colefax and Fowler. We’ve revamped how we’ve done our fabric department: We stock 400 to 500 bolts of fabric in our shop, and buy directly from mills. That’s one of the more major things we’ve done, and I don’t know how strongly that’s felt by the consumer, but people definitely come to us for textiles, especially as the options for going in person and touching and feeling textiles are dwindling.
And internally, there have been a lot of changes. I really want to take advantage of technology, and streamline certain processes and procedures. I love that behind-the-scenes side of the business too: noticing where something doesn’t work quite as efficiently and figuring out a better way. From the customer’s perspective, we’ve stayed focused on quality products at good price points, with an amazing atmosphere and customer experience. Things like tariffs and Covid don’t really help with maintaining great price points, but we navigate as best we can. I still want to keep those things front and center, because that’s what makes the brand what it is.
Since this shop was a new direction for you, what have been the things that really surprised or challenged you?
How much time do you have? Retail was not my background. In high school, I had worked a retail job at a Hancock Fabrics, which I don’t think exists anymore. Stepping into a role where I managed a team—or attempted to manage a team—of about 60 people at the time, after working from home, and being in charge of it all, was a shock to the system. It took a long time to feel comfortable with that.
As far as the retail environment goes, the constant change, and how you have to push yourself and your team to be new and fresh while still carrying the things that your customers want—it’s toeing that line. And then it’s responding to things out of your control. I was there for one year when Covid happened, so it’s not like I had decades of experience to know that, OK, the world will be good again. We’ll move on. That was a really scary period. Even [in the case of] less extreme things, like container issues and the flow of merchandise, you’ve got to think on your toes and rely on your team. So much of retail is just making it work. If your focal fabric doesn’t come in for a look on time, you have to roll with it and be flexible, which now I find to be part of the fun. I like the way we’re able to stretch our creativity and engage in teamwork.
What are some of your hopes for the future of the business?
I want to maintain the product mix that we have, because I feel like that’s who we are. But I would love to expand. We get asked all the time if we’re going to open new locations; we get a lot of requests from Texas and Oklahoma and Nebraska and Iowa. I don’t see us going in that direction in the next few years at least, but we are dipping our toe into online, which is not ever something we’ve had a strong presence in.
We have a new POS system. We were operating on something that was 20 years old! Some new technology will allow us to have some unified inventory and things that I think a lot of modern-day businesses have always had. Reaching more customers is really what we’re focused on now, and what I anticipate being focused on forever.
I would love to do more design work. We have a relationship with a local college, and we are participating in their new library build. We’re providing all the furniture, and it’s a large scope of work, which is pretty new for us. It’s been an amazing experience, and I would love to do more of that. Really, I just want to keep doing what we’re doing, but doing it better and better.
What’s your favorite day as a shop owner?
We have four open houses throughout the year, but for our holiday open house, the store is at its most magical. People book flights and hotels, they come and stay just to shop with us. It fills my cup so much, because I know how hard the team works, all the blood, sweat and tears that go into preparing for the season—everything from furniture to the last ornament on the tree. It’s all hands on deck, and it’s just a beautiful time. The store is completely packed with amazing people who are so happy to be there.
