I'm being nosy, but what about...

I understand.  There are just some things you would like to know.  These are most of the questions I am asked about MMM, ourselves, and Alabama.  Let me know if you think of more questions that you want answered. 

Is My Mommy Mart a franchise?

Nope, sometimes I wish.  MMM was the idea of my husband.  He had seen me going to consignment events in North Alabama and kept saying “We need one of these where I grew up”.  He has brilliant ideas, I just tend to expand on his ideas. 

Where are you from?

Jason is originally from the Veto area and graduated from Warren High School.  After graduation, he attended OVU and then moved to Arkansas and graduated from Harding University with a Bachelors of Business Degree.

Molly is from GreenHill, Alabama (right outside of the Florence/Muscle Shoals area), it is about 3 miles from Tennessee and 40 miles from Mississippi.  After high school, Molly moved to Auburn where she attended Auburn University and majored in Agronomy and Public Relations.

Do you live around here?

We sure do!  We live in the middle of Williamstown, WV.  We moved to this area in August 2009 and our first sale up here was October 2009.  That was overwhelming!

Why did you move to the Mid Ohio Valley?

Long answer or short answer?  Short answer…the economy.  Longer answer…Jason worked for Pioneer Electronics for a total of 10 years,  5 years as a Product Trainer and the next 5 as District Sales Manager.  When sales dropped off in the car audio market he was down sized.  For years, Jason had tried to talk me into starting a sale and since he wasn’t haven’t any luck finding a job in North Alabama, we finally did it.

Do people in Alabama really walk around saying “War Eagle” and “Roll Tide” as a greeting?

Yeah, we really do.  I didn’t know that was strange to anyone until someone asked me after the National Championship game.  The rivalry is really intense, but people aren’t outright rude.  So instead of saying “I hate your team” we say “War Eagle”.  It’s kind of like the “Bless his heart”.  For example, "He is dumb as a rock - bless his heart."  See, we can insult someone and make you feel good about it!

I (Molly) am a huge Auburn fan.  The primary colors for MMM are orange and blue.  Jason just tolerates my craziness, but that is ok too.  Jolie (my 4 year old) learned to spell AUBURN soon after she learned to spell her name. There have been a lot of questions about Auburn traditions such as "Is Auburn Tigers or Eagles?" "Why do you say War Eagle" "What is the big deal about the trees that get rolled with toilet paper?"  I found this article on a website, it is from Sports Illustrated in 1964.

How many years have you been doing consignment sales?

Participating in them? Since I was pregnant with Nate, he was born in 2004.  Owning a sale?  When we moved up here in Aug. 2009.  I don’t have all the answers, but I know some ladies that do.  Believe it or not, we have a professional organization of consignment event owners.  We all try to do similar things and help each other out. Every summer I attend a conference for owners of these events.  When a decision like no longer accepting drop-side cribs is made, it is usually made in conjunction with other sale owners or for legal and safety reasons.

Do you plan to expand the locations?

I am looking at it more and more.  Currently we only have contracts for Marietta.

Is it easy to start a consignment event?

We thought it would be.  If I would have known how much work & money was involved, I probably wouldn’t have started this.  During the “off-season” I work on taxes, purchase racks and supplies for the next sale, make (& break) budgets, update the website, get insurance, and lots of other things that I don’t want to think about right now.  Consider this; even if we sell $10,000 worth of stuff, the highest amount we could make is $3,000.  Now factor in: the insurance, building rental, racks, software, advertising, etc.  We love knowing that people enjoy our events and can get some of their hard earned money back from their gently used clothes. 

Is this your only job/Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?

Jason worked at the Verizon store in Marietta on Pike Street but is now working with JCDC.  Molly works at the WVUP Foundation and is usually running kids to basketball, cheerleading, dance, or violin.

We also have two great kids – Nate is in 2nd grade and Jolie is in Pre-K at Williamstown Elementary.