The First Few & Far Store : Where it all began

Traveling the world every year as designers, Tara and Danny Solberg had always dreamed of bringing everything they saw home. They opened their first 'Few and Far' store in Huskisson on the South Coast of NSW in September 2009 with big dreams of creating a magical space full of curiosity and set out to search the globe for unique and interesting pieces, each with it’s own special story to tell. They now have a thriving online business servicing those across Australia and  five stores around the South Coast of NSW, including in Bowral, Berry, Thirroul and of course Huskisson, Jervis Bay still to this day. Fourteen years on since opening the first store, we wanted to sit down with Tara and Danny and hear about the early days building the brand.

Danny (D): We actually originally enquired about buying a homewares store in Milton but that had already gone through and we took the advice that we could do it ourselves with a little help, which was attractive. So we thought why not Huskisson, there is nothing there in the homewares space so we could really establish and own the category with Jervis Bay. At the time it was one of the bigger stores on the street, but what really made the decision hard was back then Huskisson was a very different place - much quieter than it is today and the street at the time was really broken up with the main street having the focus of its shopping at the eastern end - closest to the water and the store we were looking at renting was up the other end - the quiet end. Our concern and everyone who had comments also was concerned that it was too quiet at the end...

Tara (T): We both grew up in Vincentia (which is the next suburb over from Huskisson) and we loved the area and wanted to stay living on the South Coast.
Our first store in Huskisson wasn’t exactly in a desirable location. It was towards the quieter end of the street, it was a fairly derelict building and most people hadn’t been up that way for quite a few years. It had sat empty for at least the last year or two. BUT! Having grown up in the area and knowing what was possible, we knew it had potential. It was the right size for what we needed, large enough to accommodate some furniture pieces, and it was a complete blank canvas. In its previous life, it had been the home to some pretty popular stores that people flocked to, so we knew we could make it work. Due to its dilapidated state, most people didn’t want to touch it, hence why it had been vacant for so long. But I had a builder as a father, so the cards were looking good!

It turned out that our vision had been correct. As soon as we opened the doors on the 18th September 2009, it was the first store everyone saw when they drove into Huskisson and they all made the effort to walk that ‘little bit further’ up the street to see what was inside. It was a success!

D: We really were inspired by other small stores around the world and Australia that were around the same size as the space we were looking at in Huskisson. 

T: We knew we wanted to sell furniture, so it had to be a larger space - bigger than your average gift store... but we also had a good feel for how 'big' we needed it to be based on other stores that we loved that sold similar product ranges. We also needed as much storage space as possible, and this store had that. 

D: Committing to the lease was maybe the scariest part I think. We had no idea about business - how much we would make... Our original goal was, "We just need to at least make enough to pay rent!" - if we could cover that it was almost a positive in our minds. We weren't really thinking big at the time with zero experience.

T: This part was the scariest, but also very exciting. With no 'owning a business' experience behind us, it was a huge step and was very nerve racking, but we knew we had to give it a go. Thinking back now, I don't know why, but I always felt confident that it would work. We believed in our idea so much that we knew we could do it, so we threw everything we had at it to give it the best chance of success.

D: From memory it all happened pretty fast. Like a lot of things we do even now, once an idea actually gets committed to things happen fast and they really need to anyway as time costs money of course. I do think for us there definitely was a little bit of a, "What we have got ourselves in for." As soon as we had the keys the hard work began and Tara and I became labourers for her Dad, John (a Builder). So it was loads of late nights and weekends spent from daylight to dark trying to convert a derelict old store into a beautiful fresh space - it was and maybe still is the biggest transformation we have done....

T: It was hard work but gosh we were excited! It felt so surreal to think "this is ours". Fortunately my Dad is a builder, so he got to work straight away - pulling down the angled walls (it used to be a video store in a previous life!), jackhammering concrete slabs that were hidden under carpet, and Danny and I helped pull up layers and layers of carpet and lino floors... We'd be there after work each night and every weekend... I had put together an interior I'd created in Photoshop so Dad would have the same vision I did for the fit out. But exactly as Danny said - there were so many times when we thought 'What have we gotten ourselves into?'... we only had an extremely limited budget and every time you pulled down a wall or pulled up some carpet there was something else to fix or replace...

D: The space we leased was an old shop - a really old shop. So every single wall was taken down, the whole floor was pulled, all the floor boards pulled up but because they beautiful old boards we turned them over and laid them back down but not before Tara and I sitting on skateboards grinded down all the thousands of staples and nails that were punched into the floor over 10's pf years and multiple carpets, and vinyl floors. All the supporting posts were removed and we replaced them with tree trunks form Tara's parents property in Eucumbene... It was a huge job refitting that old shop, everything needed attention!

T: It is important to us to have that 'wow' factor when it came to opening the store. We had high expectations and couldn't bring ourselves to do 'half a job'. We had paper all over the windows so the reveal would be a big surprise. And it was!!!!

D: Before we had opened we had organised a shipment from Indonesia - which looking back was very game. We also on a budget had visited the trade fair in Melbourne and did all our ordering ready to open. When we did open the store was stocked and ready - although I think within a year it had maybe another 30% more added.

T: Again, looking back, I don't know how we were so brave - importing a container from Indonesia before even opening?!? We knew that we wanted something different to what most other stores had, that's why we did it... but gosh, what a learning curve. And while we had a pretty full store when opening, our budget meant that we couldn't open with as much as what we really needed, so we made sure that we re-invested the profit from every month back into stock to keep filling the store.

D: Absolutely! We had an opening night where we invited all the local businesses and some locals we knew, as well as friends. We thought we would, just in case, be ready to maybe take sales and that first opening night we made many sales. It was an amazing feeling - we were off and away and the next day we were so busy - it seemed like the word was out and with Tara, my mum and I we didn't stop serving people all day. We made enough in sales to  pay the rent at least 6 times - we were actually making money! It was a great feeling - success in our eyes... and massive relief! 

T:  I don't remember the first sale, but I do remember selling an artwork and thinking "Oh great. Now what am I going to put there? I've spent so much time making sure the store looked perfect and now my display has been ruined!".  I also remember a lady asking me for the price of everything that didn't have a price on it (how does that always happen - the only items in the store without a prices sticker)... and her comment to me was 'It would be much easier if you had prices on things'. I immediately apologised and explained it was our first day open and she quickly also apologised and told me how beautiful the store was and congratulated us.

D: Incredible! As I mentioned our store was received amazingly well - in those first few weeks we had so many visitors tell us they had made special trips from down South, Kangaroo Valley, North of Nowra etc to visit this new amazing store....

T:  I will never forget the experience of Opening Night for our first Few and Far Huskisson store. It was a rush to the finish line, but we had put everything into making sure it reflected our vision from the start and to ensure it would be a complete sensory experience from the moment anyone walked through the door. The look on people's faces as they walked in will forever be imprinted in my memory. There were lots of 'wow's and wide eyes... It was one of the best (and proudest) moments of my life. Everyone was so encouraging and supportive and we still have our regular customers visiting now that came in all those years ago!

D: Very busy! Tara and I basically shared the load over 7 days every week working in the store, restocking after hours, delivering furniture after work (even borrowing family cars to deliver the furniture). We were busy every day. During winter the store was quiet as the area wasn't as developed as it is now.

T: As Danny said, very busy. Particularly the Christmas and Easter periods. I just remember standing at the cash register all day punching in numbers, Danny standing beside me wrapping and bagging product (and if it wasn't Danny it was his Mum or my Mum!) - non stop. If there was a gap we'd be busy re-stocking or quickly trying to squeeze in something to eat! We'd print out the Daily Totals at the end of the day and try to guess the number... it was very exciting - and so nice to know that people loved what we had to offer.

D: Tara had worked at Surfection in Bondi Junction while she was at university and I only really had bar service experience. Tara definitely had better product knowledge than I did but we were both so passionate about our little business that we gave everyone the best service we knew we had to offer. Every customer was new and exciting to us so we treated everyone with a very personal experience as owners. We learned so much in those early years but it really exposed us to retail and how our personal approach to dealing with visitors to our store was a natural approach to us and something we still value most above anything else we do in stores.

T: As Danny - said... I had only worked in Surfection in Bondi Junction through my Uni holidays... that was it. Other than that I had no previous retail training. I just loved homewares so I believed that my passion would sell the product!!!!

D: Not having kids helped! Tara and I poured so much time into our business. We missed friends birthdays, NYE parties, even Christmas was our only one day off. At night we would lay in bed discussing the day as well as our big ideas and goals. I can still remember walking the dog thinking about our business - it was our life but being in it together was our strength, we fed off each others energy and commitment and the exhilaration we got from generating our own income from our own ideas - that's a feeling that is so powerful that it drives you to go beyond anything we had done before. We loved what we were doing so it helped us throw everything at what we were doing - we worked crazily hard!

T:  We were both in the store 7 days a week. If ever we needed a day off, Danny's Mum or my Mum would cover for us, but otherwise it was a 7 day a week job! There was always something to do - paying bills, unpacking deliveries, delivering furniture, re-ordering... We didn't really get a lot of 'life' - I love the beach and one of the things that I missed the most was spending time at the beach - and what made it worse was that everyone on holidays in Huskisson would walk in in their swimmers, fresh off the beach looking tanned, happy and carefree, and here I was with what Danny called my 'office tan'. But we loved it and knew it wouldn't be forever, and we loved being able to do it together, so we just got on with it.

D: Well our mums used to help out quite a lot in the early days but our first "proper" employee was maybe a year in. We were relying heavily on family to work in our stores and it became too much for everyone across two stores. Tara and I worked every weekend, all weekend and were stretched - it was a HUGE decision and that feeling of being so responsible for someone else income, their life, their mortgage, was at first overwhelming. We weren't exactly drowning in income as everything we earned virtually went back into the business. We were not saving at all, we were throwing every spare cent and even borrowing little bits at times off family to grow. We tried numerous times but banks didn't want to know us at all. So our first employee was a very personal decision for us and so important to us - looking back it was ta huge step to really growing.

T: The year after we opened Few and Far, we opened a second store Indigo Love, so we were spread pretty thin... we made the decision to put on a casual team member so that Danny and I could swap who got a day off each week... Our first casual employee was someone we knew and trusted, so that made the decision easier for us, even though it felt like a big step!

D: I am not sure we could have done anything differently, we didn't have a choice. We had a limited, certain amount of money and resources and as they changed, grew and evolved we threw all those resources back in... we did do everything, I mean everything - the hard way, We didn't have access to a "Tara Solberg retail academy" which is why we do offer that now - we made so many mistakes through inexperience but we learnt so much - mistake is another word for learning they say and we learnt a hell of a lot back then very quickly. We always would say to each other "how we do find out how to do this?" Tara's retail academy in some ways is a measure of how much we have learnt and we enjoy being able to share over a decade of how to grow in retail knowledge.

T: I've been asked this question a lot, and although there are a tonne of things I'd do differently now, I don't know that we could have back then. One thing for sure would be to educate myself better across all aspects - and that's why I created Trade Wins my online course for retailers or those wanting to start a retail business. If we'd had a mentor or someone guiding us each step of the way, things may have looked very different, or we may have hit some of our goals faster. But in saying that, the lessons we've learnt along the way (even the expensive ones!) have taught us so much and really developed us as people and business owners. Having a mentor though really could have saved us a lot of time and energy which would be nice to have back!

D: Our aesthetic I think for sure - we put more effort than really any store we had seen at the time into our look and feel, our fit out and the finer details - the mix of old and new. Throw in our passion for what we were doing and we had a winning formula which really would have worked in any town. Our product range was curated and the way we merchandised that (I should say Tara merchandised that) appealed to and worked with so many people that visited our stores. They looked, smelt, felt and sounded personal and engaging - the store was an escape, a place to discover and feel inspired.

T:  When we opened Few and Far in Huskisson, our first store, even though we were on an extremely limited budget, we still understood the importance of the fitout and a strong concept, so we knew that we couldn’t skimp on the details. I wholeheartedly believe that it is this attitude that has brought the success that we have achieved today. A luring environment, one that you can linger in for hours on end and that ‘wow’ factor is what you need for word to spread. First impressions really do count, and most customers will make a decision in that split second whether or not they will want to return to your store or not, and if they have enjoyed the experience they will definitely be bringing their friends or telling them about it! Word of mouth is the best form of advertising, so we made sure we always had our best foot forward, especially when it came to presentation and service, and this really worked in our favour.