CLARKS SUMMIT – For the last six months, Michelle Dellobuono has managed a store that adjoins the one owned by her husband in the Abington Shopping Center.
She runs Wish For, a boutique. Her spouse, Terry Elkins, owns the vaping outlet Just Vapor. In the interests of commerce and matrimonial harmony and, because there is a risk of having too much of a good thing, Dellobuono sometimes issues strict rules.
“There are days when I tell him he has to stay next door,” she said recently, grinning from behind the sales counter. She was taking a break from updating the store’s Facebook page. “You can’t be together all the time, all day.”
Elkins has multiple reasons for staying away during business hours. He wants his wife to do well at her job, of course, but he also wants Wish For to be a retail success. It is owned by his mother.
Wish For is the fourth boutique opened by Theresa Elkins. The other three are in New Jersey and have slightly different names.
“We all sell the same stuff,” Dellobuono said. The store’s inventory contains various items, but the main lines are costume jewelry, casual clothing and accessories, including purses, scarves, hair scunchies and hair clips.
There are multiple pieces in the store priced at $1 and the most expensive items cost about $60.
Dellobuono said most customers are female, and range in age from middle-school girls to women who were in middle school many decades ago. On a Saturday afternoon earlier this month, a woman in her 60s parked her Lexus SUV in front of Wish For and entered in search of a necklace.
“It’s not like you need the older women to come in because they can afford it,” Dellobuono said after the woman had left without making a purchase. “The younger girls that have five bucks can come in and get something.”
Theresa Elkins’ New Jersey boutiques are in Denville, Morris County, and the Monmouth County boroughs of Red Bank and Manasquan. When Dellobuono learned of her mother-in-law’s desire to open one north of Scranton, she offered to help run the store. Instead, because of the distances involved, Theresa Elkins asked her to manage the boutique.
“It was a little nerve-racking at first,” Dellobuono said. She had no retail experience before the February opening. “But now, it’s just coming to work every day. You get used to it. You learn what people are looking for and what they’re not looking for.”
Early on, Dellobuono discovered most people prefer to browse without any assistance. If they had questions, they would approach the sales counter and ask for help.
Just Vapor, the shop owned by Dellobuono’s husband, sits to the left, or west side of Wish For. A Geisinger Viewmont medical laboratory is on the east side.
Dellobuono and Elkins were married about a year ago.
There are commercial advantages to being in a shopping plaza that features businesses as varied as a paint store, a chiropractor, two Asian restaurants and a bank. Wish For’s location regularly brings unexpected customers through the front door.
“I’ve had a lot of people say that they see our sign and were intrigued by it, and they came right in,” Dellobuono said.
Social media, with Facebook and Instagram in particular, are the key methods by which the manager promotes the business.
“Word of mouth is important, too,” she said. “But the social media are big today.”
Dellobuono said sales since the opening have met the owner’s expectations. They slowed at the start of the summer, which was not a surprise.
“People go away,” the manager said. “People are doing stuff.”
Wish For has a staff of two, including Dellobuono. From Monday to Saturday, it opens at 10:30 a.m. and closes at 6 p.m., except on Thursdays, when closing occurs at 8 p.m. The shop is dark on Sundays.
During a walk around the sales floor, Dellobuono paused at a section on the western wall. Various articles of clothing were displayed on racks.
“It’s more casual gym wear,” she said. “We do have some nicer pieces, but it’s mostly casual wear.”
Dellobuono said Theresa Elkins finds many of the wares sold by her boutiques at vendor shows in New York City. She purposely uses multiple wholesalers because this increases the selection and makes it more difficult for competitors to copy the inventory.
“There are other boutiques around here in Clarks Summit,” Dellobuono said. “But the price range is our best sales point.”
