Lisa's Entrepreneurial Odyssey from Corner Store to E-commerce Empire

Hey, everybody. How are you doing today? My name is Lisa Hodes, and I am the owner of a little cottage called Sweeties Candy Cottage. We make our chocolate. We make candy creations, gift baskets, corporate baskets, and custom orders with your logo on them. We sell toys, nostalgic candy, and a whole lot more.

A roundabout way. I was in the business world, and then I had my children, and I was staying home with them. I got divorced when my kids were very young, and at that time, remote work and flex time were not all that popular, and I felt I was always pulled in multiple directions. So when my youngest child was going into kindergarten, I bought my store. I am the second owner, and I was hoping that it would be small enough to own by myself and large enough to support my family. I also wanted an avenue to be happy and choose the people I’m surrounded by. I wanted the ability to be home with my kids whenever they needed me, and I wanted an avenue to give back to the community.

Yes. We have a brick and mortar. We are online. We’re on Instagram, Facebook, etzy., and we do a lot of charity work as well. We also have a wholesale business.

It’s in Huntington, New York, which is on Long Island.

Okay, well, we’re very into creativity. We like We like to create different products all the time. For every holiday, we have a holiday line, and we use some stuff from the year before, and then we create new designs. That includes chocolate-covered pretzels and one or two products that include chocolate-covered pretzels, which could be chocolate-covered marshmallows, Rice Krispy treats, and general chocolate things. We also do a lot of smashed chocolate, or people call it breakable chocolate. So for Valentine’s Day, we had lots of Smash hearts, different sizes, and different price points, so that we don’t want anybody to feel like they can’t celebrate if they have a tight budget. We work with corporations And we do custom products for them so that they can market themselves in a fashion where the gift recipient will remember who it’s from. And that’s pretty much our goal, to partner with people and companies to help them either promote themselves or give a gift that is going to be memorable to the recipient.

The times are changing. It’s ironic. I was just telling my staff yesterday and my friends. Ironically, I got into this business so I could be with my kids, and now I feel like I work 24/7. The Internet is both a blessing and a curse. It gives you a lot more marketing avenues, but it’s a lot more work, and it’s 24/7. So I find that in my business if you are If you have a rapid response, it affects the potential customer. And so you could have customers coming in at all times of night with questions, either between the online store or social media or Etsy or wherever it is, and people aren’t at work then. So that’s when they’re looking and they have questions. Unfortunately, there’s a bit of a lack of balance in personal lives.

That’s a good question. We have so many different avenues. I’ve tried to focus on diversification, and that is another reason why I opened up my online store. Between the economy and Amazon and everything else out there, I just feel like if I have a toe in every area, then I’m spreading my risk. So at Christmas time, my customer focus is on corporations. Throughout the year, we do a lot of college work. And so and other types of custom work. So our target audience is parents or older teenagers. For Easter, it’s parents, and we do a lot of Easter baskets. It’s for Valentine’s Day. It’s mothers and men. So pretty much everybody out there. And we also sell toys. So we do birthday gifts and goody bags and things like that.

I think I’m way more diversified than your average small brick-and-mortar. I have chosen to run my small little store like a large company. I don’t know if that’s right or wrong. We’ll see in the end. But I just feel with all the challenges today between the wholesale, and the retail, we have a nut-free facility, that we can be out on every platform and appeal to anyone who thinks of candy or chocolate as a gift or just likes to come in and shop.

So the biggest challenge I have is work-life balance. I also am in a couple of groups with business I run a women’s retail business owner group. Everyone has the same challenges. Almost every business owner I know is working day and night. So that’s a normal challenge. I can’t say that staffing is a big challenge, even though most of my business associates out there in the world are struggling. I have a great staff. I have a partnership with my staff. I could not do my business without a great team. I fully trust them. We treat each other like family. The challenge in the last couple of years is we don’t know which way the economy is going. People don’t come in, but then they come in at the holidays. They’re spending money on travel, so they’re not coming in as much. But then if it’s important to them, they do come in and spend. And so you just never know what you’re going to get. Another challenge is, as I said before, we’ve expanded in so many different areas, but we’re small, so I can’t hire a different person to handle each area of the business.

So I just try to spread it around, and usually, I get the brunt of the work on my shoulders.

I would say our chocolate pizzas and our candy sushi. Our college trays are probably the most popular overall. Oh, and our candy bouquets. So parents would buy this instead of flowers for concerts and dance recitals, and anything to celebrate children.

We’re a work in progress. We change on a dime. That’s the beauty of being small. Like in COVID, we could just adjust in an hour. We would change our focus. And so I guess I’ll wait and see. I mean, I know where I would like it to go. I would like to keep building the online. I keep making my staff’s job easier because it’s a lot, a lot of work, and for me to be able to just reduce my hours a little bit. But always, always, no matter what we do, our main mission is to make people smile and to give back to the community. So every single thing that we do, it’s a partnership with the community, whether you’re online and I’ve never met you before or whether you walk into the store. Every single sale is appreciated. Every single challenge that a customer brings to us, we take it seriously because it’s important to them.

Yes. I mean, we’ll ship out of the country. It’s just that the shipping is extremely high these days.

So I do use social media a bunch. I’ve recently become a corporate sponsor of a large local charity in the area. We give to any school in the area that asks for a donation, and we are in the middle of about five or six school districts, so that’s a lot of schools. We have recently partnered with schools to help them fundraise, where we sell our products wholesale to them. That’s only a few of probably many. So I would say on a day-to-day basis, it’s social media and word of mouth.

I just think that in my business, and for a lot of small businesses, it is a labor of love. And I think that you can see the difference between people who go into a business just because it’s a passion, versus people who go into business because they like it, but they run it like a business. And today’s challenging times between the Internet and high prices and everything else out there, you need that good mix of business sense and passion and a good staff behind you, for sure.

I have about seven people.

Well, thank you. It’s been a pleasure speaking with you and meeting all of you guys. And feel free to reach out to me, whether you’re an inspiring entrepreneur or if you have any chocolate or candy questions.