Jan 30, 2008

New shop brings owners back from FloridaBy Jason WhiteHeraldBulletin.com

A new Pendleton gift shop owner retired backward — he moved to Indiana from Florida.

“I made a dumb promise,” Sonny Woods said jokingly. “Before we married, I told my wife I would bring her back home to Indiana after I retired. And she remembered.”

Sonny Woods and his wife, Vicki, recently opened Gifts From Hearthstead Way at 128 W. State St. in downtown Pendleton. Vicki Woods is an Anderson native who met her husband when she moved to Florida with her parents during high school.

She had always wanted a gift shop of her own. Sonny Woods helped his wife with her dream by starting a small online gift shop.

Woods started his online business in 2006 by selling several hundred items from two wholesalers. Now his business has about 1,500 items online from 10 wholesalers.

His garage got to the point where it was crammed with stock left over from his online sales. For instance, if a person ordered two candles, but the candles came from wholesalers in sets of three, the third candle would go in his garage.

“I wound up with a bunch of leftover stuff,” Woods said.

He opened his Pendleton gift shop about two weeks ago so he would have a place to sell his surplus.

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