McFaddens celebrate 20 years in business

By Meri R. Kennedy
Posted 4/26/17

By MERI R. KENNEDY Joe McFadden and his wife, Lori, are celebrating 20 years in business this month at the popular spot to shop for not only colognes and perfumes, but children's apparel called Joe's Place Perfume and Lori's Little Ones on Cranston

This item is available in full to subscribers.

Please log in to continue

E-mail
Password
Log in

McFaddens celebrate 20 years in business

Posted

Joe McFadden and his wife, Lori, are celebrating 20 years in business this month at the popular spot to shop for not only colognes and perfumes, but children’s apparel called Joe's Place Perfume and Lori's Little Ones on Cranston Street. 

Prior to the store opening, Joe would go to New York City to buy merchandise during the week and then sell it on the weekends. This is when the flea markets were lucrative. Lori accompanied Joe a few times on his buying trips and found a little children’s boutique that she liked to shop for their son, Scott.

“It was during one of these trips that we stopped into the boutique and were chatting with the owner and he asked if we were in town for the International Children's Show,” said Lori.  “This peaked my curiosity so we went to the show just to check it out,” said Lori. 

“One evening at dinner, Lori told me she had an idea and it would be a big leap of faith, but with our great work ethic and my natural business mind she was sure this idea would work,” said Joe. 

She then told me that she wanted to open a children's boutique in Cranston. “I thought that was a great idea, with her fashion sense, I felt it would be a hit.  I told her I would help her find a location and would set her up with all the equipment she would need,” said Joe. 

Yet, there was a little twist – Lori wanted to go into business with her husband, Joe.

“She wanted to do it together with me,” said Joe. “She went on to say that with my sales flair and passion for fragrance and her office and organizational skills along with her fashion sense, that we could open a store like no other and was sure it would be a home run and it just made ‘scents.’ She said people love perfume and beautiful children's clothing.  So, the seed was planted.”

Three weeks later they were taking their son to pre-school and noticed the property at 1744 Cranston St. in Knightsville had a "For Sale" sign on it. 

A few weeks later in November 1996, the day before Thanksgiving, they were sitting in a lawyer’s office at the closing of the building located on Cranston Street in the heart of Cranston that is now Joe's Place Perfume and Lori's Little Ones.

It took six months of renovations, building permits, city inspections and more. During this time, Joe had all his flea market customers putting their names and addresses in a notebook so that they could send out flyers when they would be opening the new store and if they brought the flyer into Joe's Place Perfume (no purchase necessary), they would receive a free 1/2-ounce bottle of either men’s or women’s Halston perfume.

The Internet was in its infant stages at that time, so a mailing it was. They sent out 2,500 flyers (and received 2,000 of those flyers back from the customers coming in) so a lot of perfume was given out, but they had an immediate customer base.

On April 21, 1997 - Joe's Place Perfume and Lori's Little One's opened its doors to the public. 

“Our official slogan, which is on our signs on the building says, ‘Wholesale to the Public’, which was born from something my grandfather once said to me when I was a young boy and always stuck with me,” said Joe, “and that was ‘A deal is not a deal, unless you share it with someone.’”

“We wanted to create a store that carried luxury items but not with luxury prices. Joe always says, ‘Pass our savings on to the customers.’ Let them be able to buy more because they won't be paying high retail prices and this worked out into volume sale,” said Lori.

Lori's children's boutique started out in the front window section of the store but quickly expanded. Lori's mom, Barbara (Joe dubbed her "Lady B") retired as a manager of the phone company a month before they opened the store and she has been a staple in the boutique ever since.

It was “Lady B” that told Lori that Vincent’s, a children’s boutique on Federal Hill was closing its doors. There was going to be a large void in RI for specialty children’s wear for Christening, First Communion, Flower Girl dresses and more, and Lori ran with it.

“We have both put our blood, sweat and tears to make this work,” said Joe. “Seventy plus hour work weeks and many ‘days off’ running errands for the store. It's not just having fun and games waiting on customers. But over the years we have had the good fortune to have found excellent employees that have the care and work ethic to make our store work like a well-oiled machine.”

As the years have passed, the store evolved and changed with the times. Joe is always on top of the newest fragrances, which in itself is a full-time job. Together the choose watches and sunglasses that fill many of the showcases. According to Joe, Lori has a natural knack for choosing the latest "IT" items that fill the middle of the store as well as keeping on top of the latest fashion trends for children.

“An awesome part of our job is that we have customers traveling from New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, etc., as well as our customers bringing in family and friends that are here visiting from all over the world. Because of this we routinely ship our merchandise daily along with sales from our website sweetbabyperfumeplus.com,” said Joe.

“We used to joke that we wanted to be like the TV Show ‘Cheers’ where we would know everybody's name and believe it or not, this has really become the case especially because of Joe's ‘gift for gab.’ Our customers regularly tell us how nice it is to come to shop and have great conversation,” said Lori.

Comments

No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here