For Vicki Tompkins, announcing her “retirement sale” means saying goodbye to the store she loves but opening the door to more time with family.
Tompkins will close Yellowknife clothing store For Women Only in the coming months, with the doors tentatively expected to shut for good in mid-December.
The sister store of For Men Only, For Women Only outlasted its sibling. Together, Tompkins says, the stores were a part of the city’s retail fabric for 27 years.
“I feel pretty great,” Tompkins told Cabin Radio. “I mean, it’s bittersweet – I love doing the store, I’ve always loved it – but I’m ready to move on and do something else.”
She departs with a simple message for Yellowknife residents: if there are stores you love, spend time and money in them.
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“Retail has changed with the advent of the phone, the little computer in your hand that allows you to get what you want, in the exact colour that you want, when you want it. That was really hard to overcome with people,” Tompkins said.
“The people in town have to come into the store on a regular basis, not once a year, not once in five years, which I often get. ‘I’ve lived here for five years and never been in your store.’ Well, how do you engage in your city? We’re all responsible for that.”
Tompkins has tried handing off a business to a successor in the past with For Men Only, but the store did not last. This time around, she says, it is simply “time for this to close.”
“I’m very proud of myself. I can’t believe it’s been this long. When I started, of course, you think five, 10 years. This has just been a love and a passion, and I love all the people here,” she said.
“I’ve booked a trip and I’m going to spend more time with my mother, my family. I’m going to spend more time with them, and more time with my husband.”
