MALVERN — Standing in the 300 block of Main Street in Malvern, Julie Warner said she feels at home.
“This was my block as a child,” said Warner, the owner of Julie’s, a gift shop at 315 S. Main St. “I remember taking naps upstairs at my mother’s store on Saturdays. I ran around the block. Everybody knew me.”
Julie has operated her current business since 1983, and including stores owned by her brother and mother, the family has served customers on Main Street since 1958.
“When I was young, there were two dime stores, Sterling and Franklin’s, and I used to go in those a lot,” Warner said. “There were two department stores, a shoe store and a barber shop.”
All those years on the block have made Warner a leader among downtown merchants, said Nikki Thornton, executive director of the Malvern/Hot Spring County Chamber of Commerce.
“People look to her. She has a lot of experience, and people trust her,” Thornton said. “She started a fundraiser for new Christmas decorations, and in no time, the money was raised.”
The new decorations went up for the first time in 2009, Warner said.
“We purchased the wreathes, and the merchants strung the lights in them,” She said. “We hung the decorations ourselves last Christmas, but this year, the city sent out a crew to put them up.”
Warner also led an effort to place planters with flowers along Main Street during the spring and summer. But she contends that her leadership among the merchants is informal at best.
“They are hard to organize,” she said. “The business owners are an independent lot.”
Providing custom framing for her customers has always been a major part of Warner’s business in Malvern.
“I have always done framing. I had an art background, and I opened an arts and crafts store in the 1970s,” she said.
She started the business she has today with a counter selling framing as part of her brother’s flooring store in the 1980s.
“I built on that and only added the gifts when my brother expanded his store and gave me more space, and I had to have something to fill it,” Warner said.
Warner recently framed two large flags for public display.
“One was a flag from World War I, and another was a 48-star flag,” she said.
She had heard about a similar project carried out by a museum in New England, and she called to find out their methods of framing.
“We stitched the flags onto muslin that has been pulled tight,” she said.
The gift selections for her store often change, Warner said.
“I try to watch the trends. First it was limited-edition art prints, then home décor and collectibles,” she said.
Warner expects a good season of sales for Christmas for her store and all the downtown merchants.
While most American retailers judge their chances for the Christmas buying season on sales the day after Thanksgiving on what is called Black Friday, businesses in downtown Malvern look at the next day.
“Saturday is our traditional open house,” Warner said. “There are refreshments and door prizes. All our customers know this is a big event, and they come to town.”
The retail veteran also said she believes this Christmas season will reverse the history of lower sales that has been recorded over the last several years.
“We have been in a recession, but we have picked up this year,” she said. “People have been holding onto their money, but I think they are letting some of it go now.”
Warner even predicts that some popular items might sell out this year because suppliers have been reducing their inventories, and some items are in short supply.
“I am telling people that if you see something you like, you had better get it now,” she said.
While the last couple of years have been tough, Warner said, downtown Malvern has been stable.
“My mother told me that downtown businesses come and go, but the downtown will be fine,” she said. “We have lost a few businesses in the last couple of years, but others seem to take their place.”
She said the Ritz theater, one block north of “her” block, closed for a while but then reopened. She said people missed having a theater, so promised their support.
“For a little town like ours, we are doing pretty well,” she said.