by Darren Diekmann
news@thenewsleaders.com
MacKenzie’s boutique in Sartell, is now under new ownership.
Carolyn Bous, the manager of MacKenzie’s, bought the store from former owners Bob and Linda Feuling.
Bous celebrated the grand opening on Oct. 4, along with about two dozen family, friends and loyal customers, with a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the store located at 1091 Second St. S., near West Side Liquor in Sartell.
The change of ownership, which officially took place Oct. 1, will bring little immediate change to the operation.
Bous said she will continue selling the same product: fashionable women’s clothing and accessories, painstakingly hand picked by her, at affordable prices.
“I am going to keep going with the trends, keep finding the cutest things I can at those kinds of prices,” Bous said.
She will continue the practice she had as manager to keep all items at $50 or less, she said.
“And of course I am going to keep the name. It’s an established name. And I will always honor the story of MacKenzie’s.”
MacKenzie is the Feuling’s granddaughter.
“I met her 12 years ago when she was a little girl. She is in college now and is still a great gal. I let her know I am always telling people how MacKenzie’s got its name.”
The store looks and is run much the same as it did when it opened 12 years ago, but Bous has no immediate plans to change that.
“It needs a facelift, the look needs to be updated,” Bous said. “First, I have to get my ducks in a row and make money. Maybe a few years down the road I can do that.”
The Feulings told Bous more than three years ago the store was hers if she wanted to buy it. Until recently, she had her reservations. One is she found the financial responsibilities daunting, she said.
She already oversaw most of the managerial duties such as maintaining staff and inventory. The Feulings had accountants who paid the bills for MacKenzie’s along with their other businesses.
“I knew the time was coming, but I wasn’t quite ready to do that.”
Bous said she has also been deterred in the past few years by a combination of health issues, the pandemic and another personal crisis.
Continuing support from her son Myles and daughter Hannah, however, finally helped convince her to take that final step.
“I have been, along with my brother, encouraging her for the past three years to buy the store. It has been in our minds since then,” said Hannah Bous. “And finally with what happened in 2020, we just decided that it would be a good move to buy, to just do this.”
So – with the easing of her personal difficulties, the urgency of time, and the persistence of her children – she took the leap.
“I knew this was the year, this was the time to do it. I’m not getting any younger,” Bous said.
Both Hannah and Myles have also contributed to the success of the store in other ways.
Myles works in marketing and helps out with ideas at the store, while Hannah, a recent college graduate with a marketing degree, works alongside her mother and handles all the marketing and social media.
“I’ve been helping her along the way with the new system and ordering things,” Hannah said.
The Feulings, who were on hand at the ribbon cutting, have been a continued source of support.
“Bob and Linda are very kind and generous people. They believed in me from the very beginning,” Bous said. “We have a really good relationship; they completely trusted me,” She said, “Whatever decisions I wanted to make … I had to clear it with them first, but they just put the store in my hands.”
The Feulings had no intention of handing the store over to just anyone.
“Linda and I had talked about it a few years ago and she said sometime, if you’re ready, we will sell it to you– – and only you,” Bous said.
“This is an A1 property, and Carolyn is an A1 person,” said Bob Feuling. “We know her well; she is a wonderful person and we know she will do a wonderful job.”
Carolyn rewarded that trust five years ago when the store experienced a large boost in sales under her management.
Myles proposed they record a video to post on Facebook. It would present the store’s offerings to a larger audience to bring more traffic to the store.
But Bous hesitated, at first.
“I said, no way, I look fat on camera, there is no way I am doing this,” she said.
However, Hannah insisted.
“Hannah said, ‘Mom get over yourself, suck it up,’ she told me. And she was young at the time too,” Bous said.
Since then, they have made a video on Thursday night and posted it on Facebook Friday morning almost every week for five years. Bous is the presenter and Hannah the videographer.
“Now we have people from (more than) 25 states who watch the video, from as far away as Florida, Texas, California,” Bous said.
The post on Friday, Oct. 1, the day she took ownership of the store, had more than 17,000 views.
This has created an obligation for Bous to be at the store on Saturdays which are busy with customers who want to see the woman, often their friend, on the video. This is, however, a welcome obligation.
“Women want someone who can be their consultant, and I totally love that. I believe all women should sparkle, and feel special,” Bous said. “When they leave I want them to have something on that they love and that makes them feel good about themselves.”
