Lexington Parent-Teacher store no longer plans to close. Why the owners are staying open
In October, the owners of the Parent-Teacher Store in Lexington announced they would be closing the in-person portion of their business and would solely focus on the online part of the store.
But it only took owners Chriss and Meg La Rue a couple weeks to change their minds after receiving a lot of feedback from customers who were sad about the closure.
The La Rues, who bought the store shortly before the pandemic in 2020, cherished the relationships built with the community, and knew they had to give the in-person store another chance.
“We have people that come in and create their classroom on the floor of our store,” Meg La Rue said.
‘There are people who just don’t use the internet’
The La Rues also said some of their in-person customer support comes from people who don’t use the internet, leaving the in-person store as their only option for local teacher goods.
“Our Mennonites and our Amish [customers] started coming in and shopping and had no idea that we were closing,” Chriss said. “We realized that we need to have a brick and mortar still open because there are people who just don’t use the internet.”
Along with the in-person store closing announcement, the store marked down all of its inventory by 30% to quickly get rid of inventory. The La Rues still honored the sale despite the change of heart and were able to sell a lot of products.
“We changed it from a closing sale to just a sale sale,” Chriss La Rue said. “It was more of a way to get rid of the old stock.”
Now their store will feature products from newer lines, specifically within the last three years of production. The store used to feature products that were 10 or more years old.
How Parent-Teacher store wants to differentiate from other stores
“We know we can’t necessarily compete with some of the office and school supplies [stores], so we’re not going to carry everything that they do,” Meg La Rue said. “We certainly have it in the catalog, they can get it from the warehouse very easily, but we’re also kind of looking at what do our customers really want in the store.”
The La Rues are also looking at other opportunities within their store, such as featuring new products and expanding existing ones. They said this time of year is typically their least busy so they’re spending that time figuring out the best strategy to move forward.
“We’re trying to find the educational stuff that you’re not going to find at every store,” Chriss La Rue said.
