A LITTLE ABOUT THE OWNERS

My name is David, my wife Nancy and I have been married coming up on the 20 year mark. We have two children, a daughter; Mary, who is 18, and a son, Mitch; who is 16. In the spring of 2006 I started selling items from my brother’s estate on ebay. I caught the selling bug so bad, I decided to seek other products to buy and sell on ebay. I started by purchasing about $2000.00 worth of door locks from a local store that was going out of business. After I got a taste of how well those sold I then purchased a pallet of kitchen faucets from an online liquidation company. Seeking a more consistent product, I contacted the Tervis Tumbler Company from Ospry Florida about selling their insulated tumblers. I began purchasing insulated drink ware from them to sell on ebay, and eventually on my own website I called Lakeside Mercantile. Things were moving just fine until I mentioned the word ebay to my Tervis contact. “David... we do NOT allow Tervis Tumbler sales on eBay” was what I was told (that’s funny, they still sell them there today, everyone except me). I was not told any of this prior to filling up our double car garage with about $12,000.00 worth of Tervis Tumblers. Well, to try and make a long story short. Tervis changed the way they allowed the marketing of their product. If I was going to sell them on the Internet anywhere, I would have to comply with their new sales policy. Part of that new sales policy included having a Brick and Mortar store location. Wow! This is supposed to be a part time venture, to keep me out of trouble and add a little coin in my pocket! I Thought. Anyway, Nancy and I started to talk, and the more we talked, the more serious we became about opening a small store. Our original focus was to be on the casual living lifestyle of lake living. The more we researched the more we leaned toward specialty kitchen. And that my friends, is the short version of how we ended up in the retail specialty kitchen business. We took the name Lakeside Mercantile, because when we were seeking our DBA name, we really did not know what it was we would end up selling, and with a name like Lakeside Mercantile, it offered flexibility, along with possibly giving a hint towards lake type merchandise. Well, it seems we really don't have a ton to offer about lakes, but we do have a ton to offer when it comes to kitchens and entertaining...And we all seem to do a lot of entertaing around the lakes. I guess we're still focused on lake living