Stonewall Kitchen: Ingredients for Success

Stonewall’s wholesaling provided most of its sales until 1995, by which time the company had built a sizeable client roster. King and Stott wanted to increase profit margins on manufactured goods, and that year they opened the company’s first retail store near its headquarters in York, ME.

The venture’s success inspired King, now company president, to expand the retail division with a catalog. And in the fall of 1999, the first Stonewall Kitchen book mailed to 300,000 people gathered from lists brokered through Millard Group. Encouraged by the mailing’s initial results, Walsh, who came on board in 1999, and her staff boosted specific aspects of the business, such as the following: