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Cardboard wine racks and profitability

By Becky McCray

This is a picture of some of the wine racks in the stock room of our liquor store.

Cheap wine bins

You can actually buy specially designed metal shelving and wine racks for liquor store stock rooms. Instead, my mother scrounged up some book cases. Then she used cardboard wine boxes and their dividers to make perfectly functional wine racks. It’s in the backroom, so appearance isn’t critical.

This may be typical Okie engineering, or it may be small town creativity. Maybe Mom was just too cheap to shell out for the fancy stuff.
But….
This kind of thinking kept her in business, and profitable, for over a decade. I think other business people have a lot to learn from my mom.

We’re still using these shelves, of course.  Can I offer you a nice chardonnay?

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About Becky McCray

Becky started Small Biz Survival in 2006 to share rural business and community building stories and ideas with other small town business people. She and her husband have a small cattle ranch and are lifelong entrepreneurs. Becky is an international speaker on small business and rural topics.
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  • In an economic crisis, spend your brainpower before your dollars - November 25, 2020
  • Video: How to fill empty car dealership buildings for the holidays - November 6, 2020
  • How has 2020 changed the challenges rural small towns face? Tell us here - October 20, 2020
  • The Idea Friendly Method to surviving a business crisis - October 6, 2020
  • Join me for the Rural Renewal Symposium online Oct 13 - September 26, 2020
  • Cheap placemaking idea: instant murals - September 11, 2020
  • Refilling the rural business pipeline - July 7, 2020
  • Huge vacant buildings: grants to renovate? - June 9, 2020

March 4, 2010 Filed Under: entrepreneurship

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Comments

  1. Greg Balanko-Dickson says

    March 4, 2010 at 4:11 pm

    Great points! Makes the wine taste better I am sure… lol

  2. Becky McCray says

    March 4, 2010 at 4:28 pm

    Well, they keep the bottles on their sides, so yeah, it does taste better! :)

  3. UCO Small Business Development Center says

    March 6, 2010 at 6:18 am

    Creative. Good for you. When something is in view of the public, it’s one thing, and even there, you can often by the choice of color and placement of things make a fabulous look for not much money.

    But when it’s out of sight – this is a perfect way to match creativity with practicality and profitability!

  4. Innkeeper Seely says

    March 13, 2010 at 2:26 am

    Good for your mom and good for you. We have just finished a kitchen remodel after owning the inn for 11 years. It never made sense to put much money into the cosmetics when it was clean and funtional (yet old, mismatched and worn out.) For $2,500 it is pretty nice but certainly not the showcase our guests imagine it to be.

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