Business Services
Try, try again
Blossom Bucket Inc.’s Cindy Lowry has learned that persistence pays off.
By Abby Cymerman
Smart Business Akron/Canton | September 2006
Sometimes inspiration comes while you’re busy doing other things. That was the situation for Cindy Lowry who, after working five years in an accounts receivable department, decided to become president of her own business, Blossom Bucket Inc.
She tried making wedding floral arrangements but decided that brides and their mothers were too high-strung. Then she tried her hand at creating dried floral arrangements. That concept caught on, and although financing was a challenge, she hired employees and moved the business to a larger location.
She added gingerbread cookies to the arrangements, putting her family to work baking before turning to a commercial baker. After three years, the bakery couldn’t keep up with the demand, and Lowry found that mice were eating the cookies in some of the retail stores. So she went to the University of Akron’s College of Polymer Science to come up with a resin recipe for the cookies.
Soon her staff grew to five, and business was going well until she learned that a larger company had purchased her designs, was shipping them to China to be manufactured and selling them at a lower price. As a result, her sales began to drop.
“We went to the company and confronted their president about our dilemma,” she says. “At that point, we negotiated for him to give us the connections we needed to have our products manufactured overseas.”
Today, North Lawrence-based Blossom Bucket Inc. is a wholesale company in the gift industry. Her company creates original designs that are manufactured in China and distributed under the Blossom Bucket brand.
Sales have grown from $500,000 to $6 million during the last six years. The company introduces more than 1,500 products every season, and Lowry now has 10 designers and 21 employees.
“I always tell them, ‘I do not expect you to do anything I have not done,’” she says. “I stand true to that, and I think they respect me for it.”
HOW TO REACH: Blossom Bucket Inc., (330) 834-2551 or www.blossombucket.com
