Ward and Amy Cartwright
By Ed Avis
For years, Amy Cartwright and her mom saved every costume they wore because they loved them so much. So when Cartwright saw a local costume shop for sale on Facebook a couple of years ago, she quickly messaged the owner.
“The next thing I knew, I was buying a costume shop,” Cartwright says. “My mom and I had always teased, ‘Wouldn’t it be fun to own a costume shop?’ My mom had passed by then, and since she passed this was the first thing I was excited about.”
Cartwright and her husband, Ward Cartwright, bought the business, which was then called It Was a Very Good Year. They soon changed the name to The Costume Shop and moved it from its original location in Bellefontaine, Ohio to Russell’s Point, Ohio, a vacation community.
“A lot of people have their second home here and come here to vacation, so there are lots of bars and parties,” she says. “That keeps us alive in the off season.”
Amy modeling the store's Christmas gear
The Costume Shop, which has been open about two years now, offers rentals and retail costumes. Cartwright says Halloween sales represent the biggest portion of her business, followed by rentals for school musicals.
“Musicals were the main thing the previous owner did,” Cartwright says. “When I started out, I thought if I could get five local schools to buy things, I would succeed. Last year we had nine. So my hope is that this year we can add a few more.”
A key reason that Cartwright added retail costume sales was the encouragement of a fellow NCA member, Mike Foy of Foy’s Halloween & Costume Store in Fairborn, Ohio. Cartwright had met Foy several years before when she was a manager at a Target store near Foy’s. When she bought her business, Foy generously offered advice.
“He has been such a good mentor,” Cartwright says. “He has a house near here, and has stopped into our store several times. He’s just been so nice; he’s never once seen us like competition. He’s the one who told me that rentals are good, but people want to buy costumes, too.”
Another successful part of the Cartwrights’ business is a photo booth that they rent out for events. In addition to the booth itself, they include props from the store that go with the event, such as Santa hats for Christmas parties and leis for Hawaiin parties. The system is digital, so guests receive a text with their photo, including the event name, logo and date.
Cartwright has kept her regular full-time job, which she can do remotely, for the time being, but business is good enough that Ward is leaving his job and will work full time at The Costume Shop starting in January.
“Hopefully some day I will be able to do that, too!” she says.