A new group called Heart of Eureka formed to promote downtown merchants is focused on networking and working together to help each other grow and be more successful. Laci Moffitt, who owns Eureka Clothing Company at 31 Spring, said she wanted to form a merchants’ group to allow communication and collaboration.
“I’ve only been here two years, so I talked to my friend, Sue Marvin, at For Bare Feet,” Moffitt said. “I asked her, ‘What do you think about this? Will you help me?’ She agreed to walk around with me and invite people to a meeting at Chelsea’s to network, meet neighbors and have a sense of unity with downtown storeowners. We were counting on only seven people coming in, but people kept coming in until it was standing room only. I invited the mayor and he came. The meeting was just to talk about the season, and discuss networking and what we could do together to increase tourist visits to our businesses.”
That night they enlisted Kendra Hughes, who owns downtown shops including the Soap Stop and Body Shop, Sugar and Spite, and Eureka’s Nut House, to help start a private Facebook group just for merchants to provide an easy way to communicate.
“Kendra and her wife, Kim, started the page for us,” Moffitt said. “Since then we have had monthly meetings. Our goal is to work together to bring business to downtown. We feel like there is more strength in numbers and all of us working together can do some things that individual stores couldn’t by themselves, like advertising. It is too expensive for me to advertise, but together we can do it.”
Moffitt said business people who have been downtown a long time like Joanna from Crescent Moon Beads, Marsha from Just Between Friends, and James DeVito are regular attendees.
“They have a lot of wisdom and knowledge,” Moffitt said. “We have all kinds of people working together, brainstorming, and have come together to unite downtown. There’s no one person who runs the group. We decided we would all be made equal partners in the group. If there is a decision to be made, we all vote on it.
“The first project is almost complete; fifty stores pre-ordered flags bearing the Heart of Eureka logo that will be hung on Wednesday, May 1. More stores have since requested flags, and the ultimate plan is for Heart of Eureka flags to line Main, Center, and Spring Streets.”
Moffitt said often customers don’t know which stores are open on any particular day, so the group thought the flags would be a great way to show unity and advertise that stores are open. The flags include the Heart of Eureka hashtag, which will lead customers to the public Facebook group, Heart of Eureka – Interact with Downtown Businesses.
“The public group is a very easy way for all our merchants to communicate to customers and tourists what is going on downtown,” Moffitt said. “We are sharing all the events, and it is a great place to advertise sales. It is a direct line between the tourists and the shop owners. We have found a lot of tourists don’t know what is going on in our stores and with sales. We figured this would simplify letting people being able to go to one place to know when stores are open, what products are being carried, and what sales are being held.”
In addition to the private and public Facebook groups, they also have an Instagram page and Heart of Eureka website.
“Kendra and Kim are the website people and have really helped by doing all the social media stuff,” Moffitt said. “They took the bull by the horns and did it. We are having the City Advertising and Promotion Commission coming to tell us about their events. Karen Pryor with the CAPC tells us about groups coming to town and asks if we have anything to throw in a welcome bag for these groups. The stores got with Springtime in the Ozarks this past weekend and we printed signs on our door that said, ‘Welcome, Springtime in the Ozarks group.’ That helps the tourists feel welcome.”
The group started in January when some businesses are closed for the winter. In addition to using the flags to let people know when stores are open, Moffitt said a second reason for the flag is to promote unity.
“It is something we can all do together,” she said. “It just looks neat. Not every storeowner has come to get a flag, but the more people with the flag, the better. Every downtown business is welcome to come get a flag. Even if a business doesn’t participate, they still get the benefit of the group because we are promoting downtown.”
Moffitt said they’ve had nothing but good reactions to the new group. Even people who aren’t downtown merchants like the concept.
“We have had a positive response throughout all the community,” she said. “We figured there is more strength in numbers. There are more than 150 businesses downtown. We can do a lot more together.”
Moffitt, who moved here from Texas, said it can be scary opening a new business in a town where you don’t know many people. But she has found other merchants very welcoming and helpful.
“Some merchants have been in business here thirty years or longer,” Moffitt said. “At that first meeting, we had more than five hundred years of experience in that room. That stands for something. Each person who is a member of this group is an entrepreneur. Everyone has unique knowledge we can combine for the good of downtown. We all love Eureka Springs or we wouldn’t move here. We all want the same thing, for Eureka Springs to thrive along with the businesses. Together we have a much better chance of success.”
Moffitt said the group has been a great way to improve communication.
“It is just a way for us to meet, find out what other businesses are doing, how we can help each other and how we can inform the tourists of what is going on,” Moffitt said. “It really is a direct link between storeowners and tourists.”