BELFAST, Maine — Shoppers at Conklin’s Maine Mercantile can find hand-carved wooden spoons, pottery bowls and a delicious array of blueberry teas. What they won’t find are any items that were made in China — or anywhere else outside of this country’s borders.
“Everything in the store is American,” Mary Johnston said Tuesday afternoon.
“Even the lightbulbs,” added her husband, store proprietor Garry Conklin.
The couple recently moved to Belfast from upstate New York. Conklin recently had retired from a career at Home Depot and Johnston ran an interior architecture business, specializing in kitchen and bath design. As they worked to open their businesses in Belfast — Mary Johnston Design and Conklin’s Maine Mercantile share the High Street space — they knew they wanted to keep the idea of selling only American-made goods at the forefront of their strategy.
They said that as they drove from New York to Maine, they saw all the riverside factories, now mostly shuttered, where textiles, furniture and other products used to be made. That sight just made them more determined to buck the nation’s long-standing trend to export factory work and import goods.
Conklin said that a great side benefit that has come of selling only American-made products is the way that he has been able to develop relationships with the vendors. It reminds him of his early years at Home Depot, before the company began importing so many of its products from overseas.
“This is much more personable, and on a much smaller scale,” he said.
Although the goods may cost a bit more, they tend to last a lot longer and be of higher quality than much of what’s imported, the couple said.
“There’s such a pride. A conscientious attitude about their work,” Johnston said of the vendors and artisans.
In fact, a small blue sign displayed on the granite kitchen island — which also was made in America — may sum up their philosophy the best.
“Everything in our store, from ceiling to floor, is made in the USA,” it reads in part. “Buy American, it’s the right thing to do!”
Challenges and the unexpected
The Belfast store is one of a small but apparently growing number of retailers which only sell objects made in the USA, or in the case of Orono’s The Maine Maven, made in Maine.
“We were talking about starting a business and what our niche would be, and that made sense to us,” said Kristen Lainsbury, who co-founded the Mill Street shop with her husband, Jason.
The former BDN lifestyle reporter said that she got to know many of the state’s “incredibly talented” artists and artisans when she wrote about them but realized that very few stores sell only Maine-made products.
So starting from the couple’s first day of business in November 2010, they have filled their small store with unusual jewelry, foodstuffs, bags and other Maine-made objects.
“I like to call it unexpected Maine gifts,” Lainsbury said. “There are things at a Maine shop that you expect, like balsam pillows and lobster-themed things. That’s great, but that’s not really what we’re all about. We try to focus on design and quality.”
Sourcing products locally — or nationally, in the case of Conklin’s Maine Mercantile — is not always easy.
Lainsbury also said that it can be hard to “keep things fresh” by finding new products to carry.
“It’s not like we can go to a trade show and find these Maine-made products,” she said. “It is a tremendous amount of work to do business this way. We literally hunt and hunt and hunt for new products. But we’re not complaining about it, because we love it.”
Buy local movement
The buy local movement is a national trend that is paying off, well, locally. Lainsbury said that some of her customers come from as far away as Portland, Mount Desert Island and Aroostook County just to shop at Maine Maven.
“The people who are passionate about buying Maine products will seek us out,” she said. “That’s pretty exciting to us.”
Conklin and Johnston also said that some of their best repeat customers this summer were vacationing in Maine. They kept coming back to Conklin’s Maine Mercantile because they found that other gift stores carried many products that were made in China.
“The response has been really good from people,” Johnston said.
Lisa Mossel Vietze is the manager of Archipelago in Rockland. The gift store and gallery is one of the programs run by the nonprofit Island Institute and has a mission to promote island and working waterfront artists.
All the products sold are made in Maine by the 250 regular vendors, many of whom live on one of Maine’s island or working waterfront communities. They include sea glass wreaths from Monhegan, handpainted silk scarves from Rockport, pottery from Criehaven and jewelry from many islands.
“We believe that supporting artists to have local incomes and stay in Maine is a win-win,” she said.
Recently customers seem to have a better understanding of some of the benefits of shopping locally, Mossel Vietze noticed.
“I think that the buy local movement has really helped people’s awareness in general. It certainly helped us and our customers,” she said. “People are beginning to understand that when you support local artists and keep money local, it all stays within the communities.”
The Orono area also has a big focus on locally made products, Lainsbury said.
“Our customers share the same philosophy that we do — that there is something intrinsically good about buying things that are made in Maine,” she said.