Bainbridge Mercantile

Bainbridge Mercantile’s story is just as charming as our products: what started as a colorful way to spruce up our chicken coop and decorate our garden began to catch the eye of friends and neighbors. One thing led to another and our cheerful “coop art” evolved into Bainbridge Mercantile with a collection of colorful and unique merchandise.

We've had a excellent run for the last ten years, with 98% of our business coming from wholesale sales to stores throughout the U.S. and Internationally. With the onset of Covid, our wholesale business has declined. The opportunity going forward and the decision to sell the business is for a buyer with direct to consumer experience to utilize their expertise to grow the business.

Currently, all of our products are print-on-demand and drop shipped from the manufacturer. Most of the day-to-day operations involve adapting our thousands of designs for use on new print on demand products through 3rd party Shopify apps. Some website maintenance is required uploading and tagging new products as well as updating our Facebook and Instagram pages. Other than promoting social media posts, we do not run any Facebook or Instagram advertising. All these tasks have been handled inhouse.

Because our business has been 98% wholesale, there is huge potential to grow the business by marketing directly to consumers. We have thousands of proprietary vector images which we've invested thousands of hours to create, that can be applied to an endless amount of new products. The opportunity for the buyer is to grow a direct to consumer business through Facebook, Instagram advertising as well as influencer marketing.

We also have thousands of designs previously used on products that we sold to our wholesale customers and do not appear on our retail web site. These products include an entire greeting card line, magnets line, sticker sheets line, button boxes and aluminum signs. All these designs are included in the sale and could be sold direct to consumer, offering a huge growth opportunity.

A basic understanding of Shopify and E-commerce is necessary. A proficiency with Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop is also required. To maximize the growth opportunity of the business, the buyer should have a good working knowledge of Facebook / Instagram advertising and influencer marketing