Boutique credits success to persistence
By Joey Pitchford
Published in News on March 4, 2018 3:05 AM
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News-Argus/CASEY MOZINGO
Diana Rackley, left, and Jennifer Rackley-Kornegay stand with some of the children's products at Anna Jacks Children's Boutique on Berkeley Boulevard. The mother and daughter duo try to fill their store with products that are more affordable than other boutiques.
Anna Jacks Children's Boutique is officially open for business.
The clothing store, which stocks both children's clothes and some adult wear, held its grand opening Wednesday. For the Rackley family, who own and operate the boutique, getting to this point has taken time and persistence.
The family's first business venture was a tanning salon on U.S. 13, which they opened in 2007. In 2015, they took ownership of the Berkeley Boulevard property, and daughter Jennifer Rackley-Kornegay began selling clothes from the property around April of that year.
It was not until just this year that the idea for a children's boutique came up. Diana Rackley, Jennifer's mother, had long since been helping run the store.
"We hired a new girl about three weeks ago, and she said 'have you all ever thought about selling children's clothes?'" Diana said, gesturing to the children's section. "So when Jennifer and I went to Atlanta Market this year to shop for clothes for the boutique, we decided we were going to use that space over there for children's clothes."
Anna Jacks carries brands which Diana said cater more to the people in the middle when it comes to price range.
"We can't carry the kind of things that Sugar Baby's and Noah's carry, because it's territory protected and it's kind of on the higher end of the price range," she said. "So we went to Atlanta Market looking for vendors, companies, clothing lines that we figured were more what our customer range was, our price range. We were able to locate several different boys and girls lines."
The boutique also offers adult clothes, mostly for women. Diana said that the store carries clothes for women of all sizes, from small through 3X. The plus-size clothes in particular are special, Diana said, because plus-size women can often find it difficult to buy clothes close to home.
"Most of the plus-size clothes you have to order from a specialty shop online," she said. "I would say our style leans more to the mature woman, ages 30 and older, and not necessarily as much for the younger women."
Opening the boutique has helped the family supplement the income from their tanning salon. Winter months are not a busy time for the tanning industry, so having another source of income helps to fill in the gaps and pay the bills. Diana said she would like to see the business expand both physically and in terms of selection.
"There's a possibility of carrying more sizes for younger girls and teens, like 13 or 14 years old, as we reorganize the space," she said.