Photo by Jeff Clemens - Connie "Grandma" Robinson works the register on a chilly day at the new liquidation store located in downtown Raymond.
Raymond has a new liquidation store located in the downtown area and residents are enjoying amazing deals. The store has been open since last fall but wanted to get into the swing of things slowly. Now they want the word out they're open and they have great deals daily.
Nicholas Delin and his family left Winlock last year after serving the community there, with what many described as 'fantastic pizza,' after a string of burglaries and unease about the town's recent changes became too much. They decided to pack up shop and move to the coast as they've always wanted. They took a look at Raymond and saw a chance to help out the economy with new offerings and haven't looked back since.
"One of the things we heard when we ventured to the area was residents really missed having a liquidation store," he said. "We have experience with running a liquidation store as we had one before in Toledo. So we felt it was a good place to set up shop."
Delin, however, isn't the only shot caller with the liquidation store as its run by his step-daughter Brittany Scott and her grandma Connie Robinson. He admits he's just involved to help her get things running smoothly and that she's the workforce who is performing the day to day operations.
"Initially it was going to be her and her grandma," Delin said. "But her grandma just doesn't have the energy to do it these days all day long. So Brittany is really the one who is doing it all, all the time. She's working her tail off. All I am doing is guiding her a little bit while she grows the business. I'm just the support person and backer."
Robinson is often working the store with Scott and is there most days helping out. The Herald visited the location to peek around and was greeted by a smiling Robinson followed by a "hello there." She and Brittany do most of the work around the store themselves and are always open to helping a guest. "Brittany is out today not feeling so well," Robinson said. "So it's just me. It's been pretty busy."
The idea of the liquidation store was to not only appeal to low-income families in the area but help them by offering an option to get necessary groceries at a fraction of the normal cost. The store currently stocks snacks, water, household supplies, and whatever else they're able to find.
Much of the items in the store have reached their best buy dates but according to Delin, that's what aides in the great deals. Most big retailers send back items when they reach the printed dates and the items are repackaged by a separate company and offered to liquidation style stores.
Typically, the items are packaged into pallets and resold at auctions where liquidation stores acquire them. But not all the items in the package are able to be resold. SLC often gets items such as baby food that cannot be sold at or past the printed date on the container.
"It took us some time to get everything set up," Delin said. "We're getting it all more structured and hope to one day to expand it a little. Each day there is something new with it and we even got a great deal worked out with Coca Cola."
EBT is now accepted at the store and Delin plans to offer some of his amazing pizzas from Big Nick's Pizza as take-n-bakes at the location in the coming future.
The store initially was overrun by customers when it opened late last year, but in recent months it has died down quite a bit. They are hoping more customers will venture on in and see all that is offered.
Robinson estimates that close to 80% of the current sales at the store are EBT and expects it to pick up once take-n-bake pizzas are made available in the coming weeks. "It's been pretty steady," she said. "Some days are busier than others. There's been kind of a trend so we can sort of tell when it will be the busiest. Around EBT time we get really busy and then again at the end of the month."
"Up until we got EBT going the store was constantly busy," Delin said. "Then it kind of slowed down. I'm not sure if people forgot or what happened. Maybe they were waiting around for us to get EBT all set up. It's accepted now and we hope to see more customers coming through the door."