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April 17, 2006

New original | A chat with Kimberly Kennedy, owner of The Silver Basket in Presque Isle.

By Whit Richardson
Founded: June 2005
Employees: Two
Startup costs: $13,000
Projected revenues, year one: $84,000
Projected revenues, year two: $96,000
Contact: 764-0086
404 Main St., Presque Isle 04769

Tell me about The Silver Basket.
We are a gourmet gift basket store. We make gift baskets with everything from gourmet-flavored coffees to chocolate-drizzled popcorn. Probably 20% of our products are Maine-made ˆ— everything from potato candy, sauces and salsas to different jams and spreads and butters. We also carry wine, which is a nice accent for our baskets, and different cheeses and pastas.

We also have a lot of people that buy things for themselves as well. They'll come in and buy some nice dip mix or salsas if they're entertaining their friends.

When did you come up with the idea for the Silver Basket?
Probably in January of 2005. People love to eat, and I just wanted to do something different for the area because we didn't have anything like this. I wanted to create a place that was fun to shop in, to be creative and give people a gift that they know was not stamped out, that's one of a kind. That's my biggest thing ˆ— the uniqueness of it. Each basket is made special for that person or family.

Was it difficult to move from idea to reality?
It actually came quite easy. But the biggest challenge was deciding what other people would like. Because you know what you like, as far as taste, but you're picking for the customers. So far, with the exception of one or two products, which is probably one to two percent, we've picked things for the store that have moved off the shelves very quickly.

Who are your customers?
Really everybody from 20 to 80 [years old]. In the beginning, we thought we'd have a narrower age group, but it's actually expanded. We have college students, we have retirees and we have everyone in between. The reason being, we don't have a set price on everything. Whatever you want to spend is what you want to spend, and it depends on what you put into the basket. So whether you have a college student on a fixed budget who needs to send something home to their family, or you have somebody who can come in and spend a little bit more, there are really no rules.

How do you market your business?
We've advertised on the radio, television ads ˆ— which have been very effective ˆ— and a few newspapers. Whether it is radio, television or print, [customers] have come from outside the Presque Isle area. And we've donated baskets for charities or to different events around town; people would see our basket or win our basket, and it gets our name out there.

And we're also developing a website, www.mysilverbasket.com, which will probably be up by the middle to end of May.

Who's your competition?
There's no other gift-basket store. There are some other gift stores, but it's a different style. They're a little bit more country oriented, whereas we have a more modern look. I like to say more funky, with the colors and different shapes of some of our platters and mugs and bowls. Things are more eclectic. Florists also would be our competition as far as another idea for somebody's birthday, anniversary or wedding, but I think that's more indirect competition.

What are your plans for growth?
I have an idea in my head about maybe in two or three years getting a bigger store, maybe in a year hiring another person. Right now, it's just my mother and I and we're doing fine. For the holidays we had some extra help come in, but it was temporary.

What kind of mistakes have you made?
We probably put a little more money into advertising then we probably needed to. It works, don't get me wrong, but maybe budgeting [our advertising] a little bit better and going okay, instead of advertising on two [radio or television] stations a month, just doing one.
Then switch and do another ˆ— rotate instead of advertising on them all at once, because it takes a toll on your budget.

What's the biggest seller in the store?
Anything chocolate is our best seller. We have chocolate-dipped pretzels, we have chocolate-covered blueberries, we have chocolate-drizzled popcorn, which is absolutely amazing.


New Entrepreneurs profiles young businesses, 6-18 months old. Send your suggestions and contact information to wrichardson@mainebiz.biz.

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