The Joplin Globe, Joplin, MO

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Discussion

September 16, 2009

Mike Pound: General store generally has ‘everything’

By Mike Pound

mpound@joplinglobe.com

I was trying to figure out exactly how to describe Roseborough’s General Store in Duenweg, when I took a second to reread a description of the place Teri Byrd e-mailed me the other day.

“This place is great,” she wrote, “and it reminds me of the ‘five-and-dimes’ we used to have up and down every Main Street, USA.”

Teri’s description explains why something seemed familiar to me when I first walked into Roseborough’s on Wednesday afternoon. The place does have that home-owned “five-and-dime” feel to it. It also has that “no-matter-what-I-need-I-can-probably-find-it” sort of feel to it.

Jani Roseborough and her husband, David, own the store, located at 7804 E. Seventh St. in Duenweg. Of course, the best way to pinpoint the store’s location is to say it’s located in the little shopping center just west of the Casey’s convenience store. The couple opened the store in 2004. They also own a similar store in Pierce City that also opened in 2004. Jani said the store succeeds because she and David are quick to respond to their customers’ needs.

“It’s all customer based here,” she said. “When a customer asks for something (we don’t have), we will try to find it for them,” she said.

Look, it’s tough to run a small retail business in today’s world. Not only are smaller-retail folks fighting to stay afloat in a sluggish economy, they are also fighting the Wal-Marts, Targets and Dollar Generals of the world. By the way, I like the three stores I just mentioned, and I’ve shopped at all three, but there is something to be said for a home-owned store. There is a closeness, a feeling of community that I don’t think can be duplicated in a large chain store.

In order to attract a loyal legion of customers, small home-owned stores have to give folks a reason to shop there, and they have to be at least competitive price-wise with their larger competitors. Roseborough’s General Store fits that bill. In her e-mail, Teri said she stopped off at Roseborough’s the other day looking for lasagna noodles. Here’s what she wrote.

“They not only have lasagna noodles ($1.65), they have incense (20 for $1), they have cobweb baskets ($1) — seriously, they have everything — for cheap.”

How’s that for an endorsement?

When you’re running a small retail shop, trying to sell everything and trying to sell it at competitive prices, you’re going to be facing a fairly tight profit margin. When I pointed that out to Jani, she gave me a “you’re-telling-Eisenhower-about-the-war look.”

“It’s all volume here,” she said. “I handpick everything that goes into the store.”

And when Jani said she “handpicks” the items in her store, she means it. She has a long list of vendors and travels to various retail markets to select what she sells in her store. Jani said her employees would verify, if I asked, that she knew the history of every item in her store. Jani said she knows who she bought the item from, how much she paid for it, how long it had been on the shelf and how many she had.

That’s what you have to do to run a small business.

But that’s not all you have to do. You have to make folks feel welcome. You have to treat them like neighbors, and you have to listen to them.

That’s why Jani put in a soda fountain a while back. And a cappuccino machine. That’s why she created Tea Tuesdays (spend $5 on a Tuesday and get a free glass of tea). And that’s why Jani plans to open a small deli in the store in the next few months.

Roseborough’s is open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday, from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Saturday, and from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday.

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