We love when our franchisees receive recognition for their great work. In the case of the Children’s Orchard in Milford, Massachusetts, they got not one but three awards! Source: wickedlocalfavorites.com In the tradition of the Boston area, the awards are called “Wicked Local Favorites.” With over 500,000 votes from newspaper readers in the area, it’s pretty impressive that Children’s Orchard, Milford, won three awards…and they didn’t even solicit any votes! In the past the store has won an award each year, but this is the first time they have won three! The awards were given to them in the following categories: Children’s Clothing – Regional Bronze for the 18 town region called West 3. Children’s Clothing – Honorable Mention Consignment – #1 in Milford Congratulations on well-deserved recognition and wins to the Children’s Orchard, Milford! 
CHILDREN’S ORCHARD: Summer is Here!
Summer is officially here, and along with that comes the need for some fun play clothes for your kids!
As the weather gets warmer, kids want to be outside and play. They need shorts and shoes and comfortable tees. At Children’s Orchard, we have all of the things your kids need to play outside – at up to 70% off of retail prices. You can also find clothing and shoes that are gently-used and like-new for your kids. At the same time, you can bring in their gently-used apparel that they’ve outgrown and get cash on-the-spot or use it towards some new outfits for your kids.
Help your kids to get outside and enjoy the summer weather – they can play in comfort in like-new clothing…and you can save yourself a lot of money in the process!
NTY Franchise Acquires Children’s Orchard
NTY Franchise Company, a pioneering force in the rapidly growing $13 billion resale/retail industry, continues its aggressive growth plan with the acquisition of Children’s Orchard, a chain of top quality, gently used children’s merchandise. NTY, “New To You,” based in Minnetonka, Minn., purchased Children’s Orchard to expand its footprint nationwide as a leader in the resale-retail sector. Source: PRWeb
NTY is the umbrella company overseeing five resale/retail brands including Clothes Mentor, New Uses, Device Pit Stop, NTY Clothing Exchange and NTY Kids. To enhance its NTY Kids brand, the company bought the chain of 32 Children’s Orchard stores, boutiques of top quality, gently used children’s clothing, toys, furniture, equipment, books and accessories. The company will combine the two brands, under the Children’s Orchard name, to enhance the customer experience at the store level with a robust point of sale and management system, centralized analytics and an attractive customer loyalty program.
NTY FRANCHISE COMPANY: NTY Named to MN’s Fast 50 2014
The Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal released their list of the Fast 50, a list of Minnesota’s top entrepreneurs for the year. The list takes an in-depth look some of the fastest-growing companies in the state, and Ron and Chad Olson were featured as part of this list.
The article looks at the humble beginnings of the company, as well as how Ron and Chad were able to take the Clothes Mentor store and turn it into an empire. The full article can be accessed from the Fast 50 List on the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Magazine Website.
NTY FRANCHISE COMPANY: Franchise Times: Recycling Kings At It Again
Ron Olson and his son Chad were recently featured by Franchise Times in a “Where Are They Now?” article. The article takes a quick look at the past, present, and future of franchise owner Ron Olson, speaking about his role as an “entrepreneur’s entrepreneur”, and the new franchise concepts for NTY. The full article can be seen below. Sourced from: Franchise Times
Where are they now: Recycling kings at it again
BY NANCY WEINGARTNER
A serial entrepreneur is playing it again—but not in used sports equipment this time. Today it’s clothing for women, teens and even men. The secret is to be upscale and not segregate the plus sizes.
Ron Olson so believes in the power of recycled goods that he’s recycling his career. The Minnesota-based businessman made it big with his original multi-concept company, Grow Biz, which is now Winmark.
After selling the company in 2000—which included Play it Again Sports, Once Upon a Child and Plato’s Closet—Olson retired. Five years later he discovered something AARP never tells seniors: “Retirement is very boring.”
“I was looking for other opportunities as every entrepreneur does,” he says. He found it in Columbus, Ohio, where he was having dinner with Dennis and Lynn Blum, who wanted to show him their new concept, Clothes Mentor. The resale store for women had good bones, but needed fleshing out. His specialty.
Olson is an entrepreneur’s entrepreneur. His forte is investing in others’ concepts and helping grow their business. Almost anything can be recycled into a business, he says, except perhaps tools. “No one wanted to sell their (used) tools,” he says about the one concept he couldn’t hammer out—Re-Tool.
The beauty of a concept like Clothes Mentor is the customers never age out. “Women change sizes, they change professions and they don’t wear clothes that long,” he says. Most of the clothes he teaches franchisees to buy are two years old and hardly worn.
“There’s a lot of work that goes into pricing,” he says. “Our secret sauce is the pricing” and which brands to buy.
The beauty of a second time around is you’ve already made the mistakes. His son Chad, who joined him at his original company right out of college, is COO of the new company, NTY Franchise Co. Clothing Mentor has more than 100 stores, with 67 in the pipeline, Olson says.
Coming online are two other concepts: NTY Clothing for teens and 20-somethings and New Uses for household items. “It’s a totally recession-proof business,” Chad Olson says.
NTY Franchise Named to MN Fast 50 for 2014
The Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal released their list of the Fast 50, a list of Minnesota’s top entrepreneurs for the year. The list takes an in-depth look at some of the fastest-growing companies in the state, and Ron and Chad Olson were featured as part of this list.
The article looks at the humble beginnings of the company, as well as how Ron and Chad were able to take the Clothes Mentor store and turn it into an empire. The full article can be accessed from the Fast 50 List on the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Magazine Website.
Resale franchisor gets second wind after Winmark
As Sarah Buzzell perused items at the new NTY Clothing Exchange in Minnetonka, she couldn’t help but notice the pristine quality of the used merchandise, rock-bottom prices — and that lulling fragrance.
“This place smells amazing,” said the Ramsey resident, as the aroma of coconut lime verbena wafted from the store’s ScentAir machine. “The stuff looks new, and the store is nice and clean.”
Ron Olson, president of NTY Franchise Co., says it’s his meticulous attention to detail that has made him a resounding success in the resale business. Sure, updated signage and fixtures are important, but so is preventing secondhand shops from smelling like attics. “NTY is about looking and smelling like a store that sells new merchandise,” Olson said.
The NTY (New to You) Clothing Exchange, which buys and sells used clothing for teens and young adults, builds on five other resale concepts Olson oversees through his franchise company. His latest, NTY Kids, also recently opened in Minnetonka and will start selling clothes in September. Other NTY entities include New Uses, which sells used furniture, Way to Go Sports, Clothes Mentor and Device Pitstop, which specializes in secondhand electronics.
Olson has been a resale pioneer, making a name for himself at Grow Biz, a company that sold franchises for secondhand stores and was later renamed Winmark under new ownership. The company launched well-known resale names such as Play It Again Sports, Once Upon a Child and Plato’s Closet, which sells teen merchandise.
Olson left the company in 2000 and retired, but returned to the resale business in 2006, buying three Clothes Mentor stores and the naming rights in 2007. He has grown the business to more than 100 stores.
Now at 73, he’s still selling franchises that buy and sell used goods. And his timing couldn’t be better. Nationally, the number of used-goods stores has grown 7 percent each year since 2010, making it a $13 billion industry in 2012, reports the National Association of Resale and Thrift Shops. Franchising is also heating up, with the number of U.S. franchises expected to grow 1.7 percent this year, the highest growth rate since before the recession.
Clothes Mentor, in particular, has revolutionized the resale industry. The women’s clothing retailer one-upped the consignment concept by paying cash up front, no waiting, demanding current styles in near perfect condition. “Twenty years ago there were only consignment stores,” Olson said. “We brought in a more commercially accepted brand that looked like stores that sold new retail.”
Clothes Mentor has 110 locations nationally, including eight in the Twin Cities area, with more than 60 to open soon. Winmark, now Olson’s competitor, is copying the success of Clothes Mentor by opening similar stores called Style Encore that cater to the same demographic — women in their late 20s to mid-50s. Locations in Eagan and Maple Grove opened recently.
Olson’s advantage is his history of experience in the resale franchise business, said Gaylen Knack, a franchise attorney at Gray Plant Mooty in Minneapolis. “Others have come in and had average to medium success, but Ron stays on top of trends and can offer plenty of guidance to franchisees who may not have a retail background,” he said.
Olson and NTY have also branched out into areas untested by competitors. New Uses, which has 10 locations, including one in Minnetonka and one in Maple Grove, sells used household goods and furniture. The growth in New Uses stores has been slower than at Clothes Mentor. “It’s more challenging than selling clothes,” Olson said. “We’ve got plenty of customers who want to buy. Our same-store sales were up 18 percent last year, but it’s harder to get people to bring in their furniture to sell.”
Earlier this year, the company opened Device Pitstop in Minnetonka, a store that buys, sells and services used laptops, tablets and cellphones. Olson projects 300 more stores within five years. With seven stores open nationwide, the average store had revenues of $800,000 last year on a 60 percent margin, Olson said.
While the resale market seems to have unlimited potential as consumers seek value, not everything has worked for Olson. Categories such as ReTool had a wrench thrown at them when men didn’t want to sell their used tools. “We could never get enough used product to sell,” Olson said. “It’s the same thing with adult men and their clothes. After their 20s, they wear them out to a point that they’re not re-sellable. But in their teens and 20s, they grow out of them before they can wear them out.”
But those are but two rough spots in a sea of unwanted merchandise consumers want to recycle for cash. “The demand is there. We’ve become the supply,” Olson said.
New-to-You franchises
- Clothes Mentor (used clothing and accessories for women): 110 stores, eight in the Twin Cities area.
- New Uses (used furniture and home goods): 10 stores including Maple Grove and Minnetonka, and one opening soon in Woodbury.
- Way to Go Sports (used sporting equipment): Two stores in Minnetonka and Golden Valley
- Device Pitstop (used personal electronics ): Seven stores including Minnetonka, and a dozen more planned for the Twin Cities area. Agreements for stores in Maple Grove, Eden Prairie, Richfield, Woodbury, Maplewood, Burnsville and Duluth have been signed.
- NTY Clothing Exchange (used clothing and accessories for teens and young adults): One store open in Minnetonka.
- Children’s Orchard (used clothing, shoes, equipment for kids.
By John Ewoldt (StarTribune)
