Find trendy items for moms and kids at Shop Baby Kisses
By Ashley Puderbaugh
Published November 2010
Women’s Edition magazine
Mary Tillery had always wanted to open her own store, and she almost opened a candle shop in the late 1990s. But the storefront burned down days before she moved her product in. Mary finally got her chance to open another store with the help of her husband. On September 1, 2009, Shop Baby Kisses, located in the Great Mall of the Great Plains in Olathe, celebrated its grand opening.
Mary’s reasons for opening Shop Baby Kisses were more practical than anything else. She says she was worried about her husband’s job security during the recession, and wanted to open the store as a buffer in case he should lose his job. Mary and her husband have two young children, Max, then 2, and Conrad, then 5 months, and Mary wanted to make sure they would be financially secure. She also longed to work, but going back to corporate America was the last thing she wanted to do, she says.
So Mary researched the retail market and discovered that hardly anyone in the area was serving the specialty baby market. She first opened Shop Baby Kisses as an online store, but struggled to get it going. She says the competition was just too tough without having an actual brick-and-mortar store. “Most of what I have here are things that my customers say they can usually only find on the Internet,” she explains. “That was my whole premise of the online store. I could bring in the things that most small businesses don’t carry, and my customers can come see it, feel it, pick it up, and have it gift-wrapped. And that business model works.”
Mary is quick to admit that baby products aren’t her passion—her passion is really interacting with people. “Baby is just kind of where I am in my life, so it’s fitting. On the flip side, I really get to connect with women, which is what I like to do,” she explains.
The social aspect of owning such a shop is very rewarding to Mary. She shares that she gets to meet a lot of moms and gets to see a lot of new babies. “I love, love, love new babies, and my boys are growing so fast—it just brings me great joy for me to see and meet the moms and share stories about fertility, birthing, nursing, and potty-training.” Another reward through her job is being able to share her experiences with new moms and helping them out.
Shop Baby Kisses carries lines such as L’Oved Baby, a baby clothing line; Urban-Bratz, which features rock n’ roll T-shirts and Onesies; and BottomLine Diapers, a Kansas City-based personalized diaper gift line. What sets the shop apart from others, Mary says, is the custom work the shop offers on its products. If customers are buying a gift, for example, custom embroidery and personalized bows, tutus, and music CD’s are available. In fact, the tutus and CD’s are a big draw for the store, she says. You can usually only buy the CD’s during the holidays at kiosks in the mall, Mary says, but the shop’s personalized children’s CDs are available year-round. “You just look through the song database for specific songs, and you can get your CD burned in minutes.”
In addition to national manufacturers, Mary also likes to feature some local designers. “I’m all about supporting local moms and local businesses,” Mary shares. “It’s great for the customer too because they’re getting something unique that you can’t find anywhere else.”
Though Shop Baby Kisses carries mostly baby products, there are a few jewelry items and accessories geared especially toward the hip mom, such as T-shirts, frilly aprons, necklaces, rings, watches, wallets, and more. All of the shop’s prices are affordable, she says. “They’re getting the same quality they would get at any other boutique on the other side of town.”
T-shirts and rubber watches are two of the best-selling items, according to Zandra Baheyadeen, an employee at Shop Baby Kisses who also owns her own business. “The rings are pretty fun, and another top-seller is the teething ring/necklace. Moms can wear it as a fashion feature, but it also gives baby a soft ring to chew on.”
In addition to mom and baby products, Shop Baby Kisses also hosts princess parties. Located right next door to the store and decorated all in pink, the Princess Party Palace is the perfect venue for birthday parties, Mary says. “We provide a professional entertainer as the princess, paper products, balloons, a personalized music CD for the birthday girl, a tutu for all the guests, games, and party favors,” she explains. “All clients need to bring is the cake, and if they don’t want to do that we can take care of that as well.”
Zandra says the professional actress who plays the princess at the princess parties is what really makes them special. “She dances and tells stories,” Zandra notes. “And when I heard her perform for the first time without seeing her face and just hearing her voice, I could have sworn it was Princess Tiana from Disney’s ‘The Princess and the Frog.’”
Mary says her regular customers come to Shop Baby Kisses for the personalized service they receive. Each purchase is gift-wrapped, and the staff makes sure customers can find everything they need. “It’s a small boutique, and when you come here you get one-on-one action that you don’t get at larger boutiques,” Zandra explains.
It helps that the employees love their jobs, says Zandra. “This is kind of a cliché philosophy, and I’ve heard it my whole life. It’s important to do what you love and to be passionate. The money will follow,” Mary adds. “I thought that was so ridiculous before. Who in the world does what they love? I had a corporate sales job, and I was just working to survive. Now for the first time in my life, I am doing what I love. It’s a great joy, and I look forward to coming to the store every single day and meeting new moms and finding fun new things to sell.”
Shop Baby Kisses is open from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and noon to 6 p.m. Sunday. The shop is located at 20213 W. 151st St. next to Burlington Coat Factory in the Great Mall of the Great Plains. For more information, visit the Web site or call 913-829-6279. You can also visit them on Facebook. Shop Baby Kisses has a satellite location at M!lk boutique in Olathe as well. It is located at 10524 S. Ridgeview Road in Ridgeview Marketplace in Olathe.
