Greenfield Mercantile is a community-owned store selling affordable clothing and housewares.
Shares are available at the cost of $100 each, with a minimum purchase of five and a maximum per person of 100. Investors must live or work in Massachusetts.
Our Greenfield Shares program allows you to pool your funds with one or more investors to come up with the minimum $500 investment. The shares will be in only one name, and any refunds/dividends will be sent to that person, who will be responsible for distributing the money to the co-investors. If you do not personally know other interested investors, email us and we can put you on the Greenfield Shares list ... and make your investment wish come true!
While we are confident that the Greenfield Mercantile will be a profitable business, providing a return to investors and the community, we are encouraging investors to think of their investment as a way of supporting the community. In other words, we are looking for investors to invest because they believe in Greenfield. At this time, we are hoping to provide a small return after the first three growth years.
Our goal is to raise $600,000 through the sale of stock. After we have raised that capital, we can finance the rest with loans from local institutions dedicated to business growth in the area. We will work with the Franklin County Community Development Corporation, the Western Massachusetts Enterprise Fund, and local banks to structure debt in a way that will ensure long-term success.
For the first few years, we will focus on the success and growth of the business, so our profits will be channeled back into bringing prices down, expanding our product lines, into providing better service to our customers and better benefits for our workers. Our next priorities are to our shareholders and to the communities we serve, and we anticipate being able to provide a modest return to our shareholders at the same time we are supporting our community.
The shares are currently $100 per share, with a five share minimum. Future decisions about share price, “splitting” of shares, and other relevant decisions will be made by the Board of Directors based on the situation at the time. There is a limit to the number of shares anyone can purchase (100 shares maximum per person), in order to prevent any single party from owning a controlling interest in the store.
We will be in downtown Greenfield. Currently, a number of locations are being considered, but he most promising and likely location is on Fiske Avenue, on the main floor of the Furniture Store.
We will sell Men's, Women's, and Children's Clothing, as well as a limited selection of Jewelry, Housewares, and seasonal Shoes.
- Women’s Apparel: sportswear from M to XXL; small juniors section focusing on smaller sizes and trendier styles for teens and women smaller than M.
- Men’s Apparel: jeans, casual clothes, and work clothes.
- Children’s Apparel: basic children’s apparel for toddlers and up.
- Jewelry: will come in the following options: 14KT Earrings, 14KT necklaces, 14KT rings, 14KT bracelets, sterling earrings, sterling necklaces, sterling rings, and sterling bracelets.
- Housewares: offerings will include small appliances and a limited selection of textile needs.
- Footwear: men, women, and children’s footwear will come with a limited selection, focused on seasonal needs as well as a few choices of sneakers and boots.
We have contacts with many vendors in the Northeast region, as well as nationwide, and these merchants have shown us goods and prices that will surprise you. Through the purchase of off-price items, overstocks, odd lots, including first-rate brand-name goods, as well as regular product lines, we will be able to sell merchandise at affordable prices. Being large is not always an advantage. Sometimes being a small store will enable us to purchase merchandise very cheaply.
We will be needing all kinds of help as we get closer to opening, we may be setting up volunteer advisory boards, on which you might want to serve. See the Volunteer page and Contact us for details. Right now what we need most is many investors, so buy shares and pitch the sale of more shares to your friends!
We hope to have our Grand Opening sometime this fall, once we’ve raised our starting funds, completed renovations, and stocked our store.
We are very aware of this sensitive topic and of the problems in clothing manufacturing worldwide. Our first aim is to provide a locally owned store that sells the best quality merchandise it can get for affordable prices. We will be working towards the goal of purchasing Fair Trade goods in the future, and we may carry a line of Fair Trade clothing. However, it is unlikely that we will be able to supply our target customers with the products they need solely with Fair Trade items. Unfortunately, many Fair Trade goods are out of our customers’ price range.
An unpaid board of directors will guide the overall mission and direction of the store. For day-to-day operations, there will be a general manager, as well as an assistant manager and buyer. We will also be hiring some full-time and part-time employees as cashiers, stock people, and customer service representatives. All of our employees will be reviewed through a fair hiring process so that we can hire experienced customer-focused employees. We will pay our workers a competitive salary and offer competitive benefits.
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