How a Stratford, Ont. biz owner turned her high school job into an award-winning online store
CBC
Imagine returning to your high school job and turning it into an award-winning business in the online era.
That's precisely what Karina Bogle did.
Nearly a decade since her days as a teenage sales associate at White-Balmer Shoes in Stratford, Ont., Bogle took over as owner in 2019 and pivoted to online sales at the start of the pandemic.
That pivot helped earn Bogle the Emerging Ecommerce Entrepreneur of the Year Award at eBay Canada's annual Entrepreneur of the Year Awards. Today, White-Balmer Shoes continues to operate as both an online shop and as a physical location in Stratford.
Bogle shared her story with CBC Radio's Afternoon Drive. Here's part of that conversation, edited for breadth and clarity.
You have a pretty long history with the company. Tell us a bit about your first exposure to the business.
I started working for White-Balmer Shoes as a sales associate during high school in 2009. That's where the development of my passion and interest for shoes started, and I knew then that I wanted to stay within the footwear industry. I went to the University of Guelph and moved to Toronto after that, where I worked for a Canadian shoe distributing company. I was there for about five years when Pat White and Glee Balmer, the previous owners of White Balmer, contacted me and let me know that they were ready to retire. I jumped at the opportunity to purchase it from them and I've had the store now for just over two years.
Did you have any idea back in high school that you would eventually want to come back later in life as the owner?
No. Not specifically here. I thought maybe I'd own some sort of shoe-related business. But as soon as I heard this, it was like, 'yes, this is what I'm meant to do.'
You took over as owner in summer of 2019. How much of the business was being done online then?
Nothing. Nothing at all.
And in less than a year in your time as owner, COVID hit. What was that like?
It was very challenging. I was just learning the ropes of owning the company, and then it hit. So, trying to pivot and adapt to all of those challenges was something that was very unexpected.
White-Balmer was one of many businesses that had to pivot to become an online store during lockdown. What made you decide to concentrate on eBay, as opposed to focusing on building a White-Balmer webstore?
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