Hiawatha business stuffs gift baskets

By Rebecca Groff, correspondent

Name: Linda McConnell

Title: Owner

Company: Basket Bowtique

Address: 758 N. Center Point Road, Hiawatha

Phone: (319) 362-2577

Website: www.basketbowtique.com

Elevator pitch: Baskets brimming with Iowa products, from caramels and sausage to bath items and beer

The concept for Basket Bowtie, owner Linda McConnell said, isn't so much baskets as “gifting.”

Her business focuses on assembling a wide variety of gift containers, some of which indeed are actual baskets. The business not only uses wicker baskets but will fill decorative tin pails, boxes, trays, vases and just about any type of container that would satisfy the request of a customer for a specific theme.

Hawkeye- and Cyclone-themed tin pails and buckets are very popular items, and McConnell sells many of them during the academic year.

The shop offers a large selection of bath and baby items, music CDs by local artists, gourmet chocolates, jams, dips and local foods, as well as wines from nine Iowa wineries and breweries.

Basket Bowtique is a strong advocate for a variety of Iowa products that range from Sweetopia caramels and Amana sausage to beers and wines from Daly Creek or Tassel Ridge wineries, among others.

“It's our niche,” she said. “We use local food products in our gift baskets as well as sell them outright.”

Basket Bowtique has an Iowa wine permit that enables it to sell wine by the bottle or put them in their gift baskets, and the locally produced wines and beers have been a key item for their clients.

McConnell recently had cause for concern when she received a letter from the state's Alcoholic Beverages Division saying she could no longer include alcoholic beverages or deliver it off premise in a gift basket. The state's concerns were for keeping alcohol out of the hands of underage people.

“These wines are a big part of my business,” she said. “We understand the rules and we abide by them, but we are promoting this new industry for this state, and my business will suffer if this isn't resolved.”

McConnell said final resolution is expected this July.

Basket Bowtique, which she opened in downtown Cedar Rapids in 1992 after leaving her position as store manager for Montgomery Ward at Westdale Mall, did business for 16 years in Coventry Gardens Mall on First Avenue until the 2008 flood.

The current Hiawatha storefront was vacant, so McConnell rented it, restocked and started over.

“With the additional space we can carry more items,” she said.

October through December is the busiest season for gift baskets.

“We do half of our whole year's business during that time,” McConnell said.

Two people work the shop full time, and during the seasonal rush she will bring in two additional employees to handle packing, shipping and stocking.

When McConnell is not working, she's traveling around the country to attend gift trade shows, looking for “that next great gift-basket design” for her business.

Those trips on occasion also involve teaching her craft.

“I was invited to teach classes at a national gift basket convention (in Boston) two years in a row,” she added.

Own or manage a Corridor business? To have you or your business considered for “My Biz,” contact business editor Michael Chevy Castranova at michael.castranova@sourcemedia.net.