Kay Moran has had her own store since she was 16.
She’s now 60.
Moran, who owns Daisy Shoppe boutique at The Shops at Mission Viejo, opened her first store inside a small house on Daisy Street in Pasadena.
Rent was $125 a month. She worked at the store after school.
Moran moved her store to a couple different locations in the Pasadena area over the next two decades.
When she moved to Orange County 20 years ago, her store went with her.
“I just picked the closest mall, which was Mission Viejo,” she said.
Moran’s been at the Mission Viejo mall since, selling “feminine and girly” gifts, clothing and accessories.
Her store just moved to a new space at the mall, doubling to nearly 3,000 square feet.
Her daughter, Kelly Moran, 28, owns Daisy Shoppe at Brea Mall. Both stores sell the same items. Moran and her daughter collaborate on the design of their brands, Cute by Daisy and Baby Daisy.
Daisy Shoppe sells items such as wallets, passport covers, cookbooks and vintage aprons with matching dish gloves.
She finds things for her stores at annual gift and clothing shows in Atlanta and Las Vegas. Moran goes to February shows to buy for summer and August shows to buy for the holidays.
“I’m always looking for different, cute items,” she said.
Moran works six days at the store and has about a dozen employees.
She’s looking at possibly opening another.
“We have a lot of customers that would love us to be in San Diego,” she said.
But Moran’s said she’s not interested in strip malls or any location that’s not inside a regional mall.
The mall guarantees customers, according to Moran.
“There’s always something going on in a mall,” she said.
Boat Show
Yacht sellers hope the recent four-day Lido Yacht Expo in Newport Beach will spur lagging sales.
“This is an important show,” said Jim McLaren, general manager of Orange Coast Yachts in Newport Beach. “We need to meet some buyers at this show.”
Orange Coast’s average sale is about $2 million.
Some of the other exhibitors at the show included Crow’s Nest Yachts of Newport Beach and Chuck Hovey Yachts Inc., also of Newport.
About 250 boats were on display, mostly new and used yachts longer than 26 feet.
Yacht dealers don’t necessarily sell boats at the show. Mostly the show is a chance to get boats seen by a lot of people at once.
“We’re here because you can talk to a lot more customers in a day than sitting in your office waiting for your phone to ring,” McLaren said.
Big boat sales have been anemic for the past couple of years.
The economy has affected everyone, McLaren said.
Even though the wealthy have the money to buy a yacht, many are navigating their businesses through the slow recovery, he said.
Much of McLaren’s business lately has been selling boats that were repossessed by banks, he said.
Ian McGhie, salesman for Long Beach-based Stan Miller Yachts, said lower boat prices haven’t helped sales.
“That doesn’t necessarily encourage people to buy anything,” he said.
McGhie said he tries to focus on the upside of owning a yacht: A boat is a great getaway or place to spend an afternoon.
“We sell a sense of adventure,” he said.
Elco Infatables
Elco Marine, which recently moved from Santa Ana to Newport Beach, was at the show displaying its inflatable boats.
Just about every yacht has an inflatable dinghy, said Steve Elliott, owner of Elco Marine.
The yacht is the owner’s condo on the water, he said. The inflatable, parked on their yacht, is their play boat.
“It’s the fun part of boating,” he said. “You don’t go out and do doughnuts in a 50-foot yacht.”
Elco Marine, a family business started in 1978, recently moved its store from Santa Ana, where it was for 17 years, to be closer to its customers.
Auto Scholarships
Newport Beach-based Orange County Automobile Dealers Association recently awarded 26 local students a total of nearly $20,000 in scholarships to pursue studies in auto technology at several colleges, including Cypress College, Fullerton College and Golden West College.
Auto technicians continue to be high in demand, given increasingly sophisticated auto technology that requires computer knowledge.
Nationally, the auto industry is expected to add 11,000 auto tech jobs annually through 2016.
