The benefits of being a member of our maker family with full-time placement in Local LEX Market stem primarily from being able to face the shopping public five days a week without having to be present to do so. Our makers bring their items to the market, we merchandise them in an environment that blends all our makers’ pieces together into a coherent and unified boutique. We open the store each day, maintain a welcoming shopping environment, manage your sales, collect and remit sales tax on your behalf (for sales at the store). All while you’re free to focus on marketing your skill and small business and pursuing whatever other endeavors are important to your small business, your family, and your life.

Everything else about our arrangement is designed to maximize the success of each maker’s small business. A flat monthly rent with absolutely no commission means makers know exactly what their overhead will be each month, allowing them the flexibility to adjust pricing, inventory, and selection as they see fit at any time they wish. Daily remotely accessible sales reporting means the maker knows almost in real time what is selling and what isn’t, what may need to be rotated out of the market and what items need to be added to their inventory. Because we seek no commission, Local LEX acts as an intermediary for custom orders in whatever way works best for the customer and maker, meaning facilitating direct customer-to-maker transactions when that works best also works best for us.

In addition, our social media capital and loyal customer base is shared with our makers free of additional charge. With an active social media following of more than 5,000 consumers in our geographic area, being a part of our family means your items and your business are routinely placed in front of our loyal customers. In addition to our planned social media rotation through the family, we re-share every post our makers put up that tags Local LEX Market. We also make posts requested by our makers and emailed to us with images, etc. by the next business day. Our customer base is loyal because they believe in supporting local and shopping small. On an average week 30-40% of our visits are from returning customers, and we tend to see a majority of our first time customers again within six weeks.

We believe in community over competition, and work with our maker family with that as our guiding principle. Together, we believe all of our small businesses can grow and thrive. By providing opportunities for our makers to co-op in the store in exchange for all or part of their monthly rent, facilitating dialogue among makers in our private online community, seeking opportunities to connect makers for collaboration, offering space for classes and events, and hosting special maker-focused events for our customers, we do all we can to empower, inspire, and hustle our common way to our dreams.