Oser Communications Group

pictures and design labels for her. Since she also had experience making websites, she could be drafted to that too. The two of them decided to form a partnership in which each would contribute their own skills. "You do your thing, and I'll do mine. I don't step on her toes, and she doesn't do my computer work," Allison said. "My sister's the product developer; I'm the computer lady, and we have figured out that if I can make something, anybody can – and that's true!" Newer products include Cherry Vanilla Bagel Spread and Waffle Topper, White Chocolate Bread Pudding Mix, Cheesy Cheddar Potato Soup and Cheddar Broccoli Soup, while best-sellers include a Southern Chicken Salad mix; BLT Dip mix, which can also be used as the seasoning for a cheese ball; and the seasoning for a Gourmet Gumbo. The products are made in small batches and shipped f rom Coldwater, Mississippi. For more information, visit www.southernsistersgourmet.com. KN retailers as a market for opportunity, according to Joe Feldman, Senior Managing Director and Assistant Director of Research for Telsey Advisory Group, a research firm focused on the consumer sector. "For some of them, that may mean Wayfair, but for others, that means independent housewares retailers," he said. Even with those three major home goods retailers falling, there's still plenty of competition in the housewares market, the two of them told the housewares executives gathered this year at CHESS, the International Housewares Association's annual Chief Housewares Executives Super Session. Online clothing companies have begun to expand into home goods as subscription companies like Stitch Fix and Rent the Runway eat away at their sales, and though the department store model is faltering, Kohl's is an exception to that and is expanding into new brands for its home goods departments, Telsey said. "Macy's is still trying to figure it out," she added. HomeGoods is rethinking the square- footage of its stores and finding new ways to put more merchandise into smaller spaces. At the same time, the chain's total square footage for its stores continues to grow, and Telsey believes we can expect to see that growth accelerate in the future. Burlington and Ross are also increasing their penetration into home in order to diversify their assortment f rom apparel. Wayfair is also venturing into brick-and- mortar stores with the August opening of its first physical full-service store in the Natick Mall in Massachusetts. Wayfair had previously operated an outlet store in Kentucky and has operated pop-up locations in other states, so this is not its first venture out of the cyber universe, but it does represent its first full-service store. It's only 5,200 square feet, but it's providing Wayfair with information about what customers want, so we can expect that, given the traffic that it's getting and the data that the brick-and-mortar store is collecting, Wayfair will look at opening more, Telsey said. Inventor y levels in the market are creeping up ahead of the holiday season in anticipation of higher costs associated with tariffs due to go into effect this fall. Many home retailers have no great exposure to the upcoming tariffs, but for those that do, it's a pressure point that has caused them to reduce their profit expectations, according to Feldman. Economists expect that consumers will start seeing higher prices associated with the tariffs, even though big retailers are using their clout to try to force their suppliers to eat some of those costs, he said. The bigger retailers that are exposed, like W illiams Sonoma, are expected to respond with a combination of tactics – recovering some of their projected cost increases by pushing back on their direct suppliers and some by pushing back on the manufacturers in China. Some of them are eating some of the cost increase. But if they can't find other ways to cover the cost increases, they'll also need to raise prices, Feldman said. Retailers with the ability to do so are using technology to make shopping easier for consumers. Furniture and décor stores are using augmented reality and virtual reality to do things like letting a shopper see how a chair will fit into their own living rooms, and retailers are also making their stores into more entertaining spaces to keep customers there longer with bars, restaurants and cooking classes. "They're tr ying to make the stores more experiential," Feldman said. "Customer loyalty is an important focus." Telsey added that the future belongs to home goods retailers who find ways to appeal to consumers' desires to form memories rather than just acquiring objects, and consumers are willing to spend money with retailers who are able to provide them with a sense that they're acquiring an object that was built specifically for them and that they'll be able to form memories around it. KN COMPETITION IN HOME Continued from page 1 KITCHENWARE NEWS & HOUSEWARES REVIEW • NOVEMBER 2019 • www.kitchenwarenews.com 12 Southern Style from Mississippi Sisters BY LORRIE BAUMANN Two former elementary school teachers have made a tiny town in northern Mississippi their headquarters for making Southern-style hospitality a convenient option for home cooks across the country. Their Southern Sisters Gourmet offers starter kits for Southern-style entrees, jams and jellies, mixes for dips and cheeseballs and mixes for treats like Mississippi Mud Cake, Chocolate Cobbler and Chocolate Gravy – everything that a home cook would need to put a dinner party on the table in a flash, according to Kay Allison, the sister who handles the marketing and technology duties for the company. Her sister, Claire Easley, is the company's product developer and the one who had the idea to start a gourmet food business eight years ago after she retired from teaching. "Claire just has always liked to cook," Allison said. " W hen we first started, I was just going to make labels and help Claire." Easley had a collection of recipes passed down f rom her mother, father and grandmother that included family favorites as well as experience working in a local gourmet food shop that had given her insight into retailing. In Kay, she also had a sister who'd been doing photography for 30 years and was willing to shoot

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