Once upon a time, a brilliant idea came upon my husband. That fairy-tale-opening phrase is an apt beginning for this story . . .
His medium-sized advertising agency was thriving, and I was earning well as EVP in a multinational ad agency, yet he had this brilliant idea to make it big as a retail king, ala the owner of SM and other big store chains.
He found a number of apparel suppliers of seconds and production overruns that had tons of rejects from big department stores. After negotiating for a space in a new neighborhood mall, the owner of which was his client, he decided to sell the goods he could get for a song, at rock-bottom prices.
My meager contributions to the project were my excitement, its name and the logo, which one of my art directors designed—for the love of Grace.
“Your Money’s Worth.”
They’d grab items, priced in big stores for P250, sold for only P25 in ours. Soon, wholesale buyers, such as store owners in the provinces, would regularly flock to the shop.
Just over a year later, however, the suppliers suddenly refused to sell to Tony, with the excuse that stocks were scarce. They never revealed the real reason why this happened, but my husband suspects to this day that SM, who sold the “perfect” goods, found out about the idea and bought all the imperfect ones as well for its own.
Tony’s vision of becoming a retail king was quashed before it could take off.
Was it a coincidence that SM set up its own “Your Money’s Worth” and called it Surplus Store, a few meters outside its main department store? Although the prices are not as cheap as our old shop’s, it is booming and has made the big retail king who owns the department store a bigger retail king.
Whenever I see our old store sign, which we have kept as a corner décor in our home, I tell Tony, “You were ahead of your time.”
Immodestly he replies, “Always.”
A fairy tale it was. The end.
"We can make our plans, but the Lord determines our steps." (Proverbs 16:9 NLT)
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