The first day that I walked through the doors of Dolls and Friends, I knew it would make an impression on me. The store had dolls and bears sweetly arranged throughout the store in chairs, glass cabinets and assorted shelves.

The owner, Kathy Notenboom, told me she had loved dolls as a child. This was very evident as I walked throughout her store.

Kathy said, "My mother had always loved dolls, so as a child I had many to play with. I still have my childhood favorite doll, an Ideal by the name of Kissy." She guessed it was inevitable that she would one day end up with dolls playing a major part in her life.

Over the years, she gradually grew away from dolls and took up a career as a Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN). In the late 1980's, she retired from Nursing. She gradually became interested in collecting artist Teddy Bears, and then rediscovered her love of dolls. She went to work for a local doll shop in 1990, and soon began to attend local doll and bear shows to learning about the doll business.

In 1994, after being laid-off from her job, Kathy decided to take the big plunge, and in September of that same year, Kathy and her spouse Leo opened Dolls and Friends. With Leo's background in computer programming and Kathy's in retail, they were ready to take on the complexities of running a store with virtually thousands of items to be sold.

"Kathy did the basic design herself. The goals were to provide a professional, interesting and comfortable shop that displayed a lot of dolls and bears, without feeling cluttered or crammed, as many shops seem to be. We tried to include several different types of displays and display cases, and tried to position merchandise so that people would be drawn into and around the shop", stated Leo.

Experience was a key for Kathy and Leo in opening their shop. Kathy's work in a doll shop for some time supplied the experience. Leo said, " It was clearly a case of looking at what was going on and learning lessons of what to do. Perhaps more importantly, was learning what NOT to do has helped us survive our early years."

They suggested that people looking to start a business should also understand the initial financial investment you need to make. Leo said, "I've heard that most start up business fail due to lack of funding. I'd turn that around and say that most startups fail because they didn't understand how much it would take to begin."

They believe you should make sure of your purpose, that your mission is clear. They are first and foremost a doll and bear shop, for example. Attempts to expand outside of that have frequently been disappointing for them.

They have learned that this is where their expertise lies, this is what customers expect of them, and this is where they invest their resources. Leo said: "Knowing your field is perhaps the most important thing; it is what makes you unique in a crowded market." It may sound like a cliché, but "doing what you love" is clearly evident in their business.

In late 1996, two years after opening their shop, they took the next step into the natural progression of their business. They developed a their own web site, Dolls and Friends . The web site certainly gave them more visibility within the online "collecting" community.

To help attract more attention to their site, they made sure to register with major search engines on the internet. They have about 700 visits per month to their site, with significantly higher traffic during the holiday season.

Leo does the design and maintenance for their site. It is through a local ISP and is pushing 15 megabytes of online text and photos. All the HTML is hand written. Photos for the site come from various catalogs provided by the manufacturers, and then cleaned up for online use.

Currently they have one of the largest dolls web sites in existence, containing literally hundreds of pictures. They have customers in Singapore, New Zealand, Mexico, and have also received inquiries from several additional countries. Their frequently asked questions (FAQ) list does indicate that they ship internationally.

They keep a close eye on their business and the market, as they do not wish to grow complacent. In their shop, it is important for them to watch carefully what is and is not selling, so that they can plan appropriately. They understand that they cannot carry everything that people may ask for. That means they need to understand what is in demand, so they can prioritize their efforts accordingly.

They keep their web site updated with the latest releases of their major lines. Local customers make use of the web site just to get information on upcoming merchandise. They also make sure people on related interest groups are aware of their updates. These are doll-and-bear mailing lists and related usenet news groups.

Leo said, "Unfortunately, we are not providing any kind of online shopping basket technology, nor do manufacturers allow us to discount items, as people searching the Web tend to expect.

"The Web, for us, is a fairly easy way to present ourselves, our name, and our merchandise to a broader audience. For us, it is simple, because we're fortunate enough to have all the web creation and maintenance expertise in-house." They have their URL on all of their correspondence, letterhead and ads.

Their web site is user-friendly, and contains a complete Table of Contents. To make it easy to visit their site, users need to use a minimum of mouseclicks. Web pages are uncluttered and pictures are as thumbnails to minimize download time, with the full sized picture just one more click away. Customers wishing to do so can order by email, FAX or phone.

The site gets at least five major upgrades a year, as new information becomes available through the manufacturers and artists.

Major lines carried:

• Alexander Doll Company, Inc.
• Corolle
• Vogue Doll Company
• Ashton-Drake, including Gene Marshall
• Effanbee Doll Company
• Georgetown Collection
• Goetz
• Helen Kish
• Maggie Iacono
• Susan Wakeen
• Julie Good-Kruger
• Lee Middleton
• North American Bear-Muffy VanderBear
• Ganz Cottage Collectibles
• Douglas Cuddle Toys

One last bit of wisdom from Leo was simply, "Personally, I'd recommend that people carefully choose the focus of their business. By that I mean, especially starting up, a business should focus on either traditional methods (such as a retail storefront) or electronic commerce (the web) but not attempt to split efforts across them both.

"A retail business on the web is quite different from a retail storefront, and it would be very easy to do both poorly in an attempt to do them both at the same time," he added.

Leo has been a programmer at Microsoft for nearly 15 years. The shop's cash register software (a custom Windows application running on a personal computer) and the shop's web site have allowed him to participate more directly in what real users and real small-businesses are about. Leo and Kathy definitely make full use of today's technology to help them make Dolls and Friends memorable for customers, and rewarding for them.