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Where the Selling (From page 68)

items in specific areas by type of product because it allows customers to find items more easily, she noted.

In Payson, Ariz., at Sweet Country Charm Fudge & Gifts, Owner Rebecca Acord is all about the nostalgia. For toys she does best with “the old-fashioned Candyland games, a little phone that you pull and make the eyes go back and forth, a dog with wobbly wheels, and an old-fashioned jack in the box. I can’t compete with Walmart, so I really focus on the vintage items, from toys to candy like Necco wafers,” she related.

Acord finds her treasure trove of nostalgic toys and candy primarily online. “I find items from the 60s through the 80s,” she related. “In candy we have Astral Pops, Wacky Wafers, Tiny Tarts, a lot of Beech Nut items, and old-style candy bars like Unos, Zero, and Sky Bar. I can’t always get everything I want to order these days, but I get them when I can,” she laughed.

The 900-square-foot store also sells 174 rotating types of fudge, made in-house.

To sell more candy or toys, Acord said, “We do a lot of Facebook posting and featured ads, and in the store, I try to purchase and display items that are unique, with a special emphasis on older types of things that are going away. Along with the mainly old-fashioned candy, we have lots of locally made products that are handcrafted, like hand-knitted or crocheted items, the kind of things you don’t typically see in stores anymore.” While the old-time packaged candies can’t be sampled, and the store has tended to move away from sampling altogether because of COVID-19, nonetheless Acord does offer samples of the store’s fudge, which elevates sales in that category.

Her nostalgic toys and candy also get a special boost from a large, free community event as well, she said. “Every year on Black Friday we do a lighting of the Swiss Village we’re located in, and everyone in town it seems gets out, walks around, goes in the shops. Not only is it a big event here in Payson, it’s big for us. People come into the store and they’re already eager to purchase our nostalgic items.”

Elsewhere in Arizona, at Mother Lode Mercantile in Apache Junction, Store Manager Cathy , who goes only by her first name, speaking for Owner Joann Akers, said this shop, too, centers its merchandise on the nostalgic. “Nostalgia fits our setting for us, that’s why we offer it. We’re in an 1890s-era mining town, so we’re all about the past.” The candy that the store sells includes favorite types from the 1950s through the 1990s. “Although our homemade

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