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Wally & Crumb, 4903 Forest Drive: Fall 2007   2 comments

Posted at 2:08 am in Uncategorized

Wally & Crumb was a small cookie bakery on Forest Drive next to the La-Z-Boy warehouse near Trenholm Plaza. I stopped by a couple of times and got some chocolate chip cookies which were perfectly OK, but I think in the end the place had four problems:

1) Location

In general, a cookie store is not a destination in and of itself. I think if they had managed to locate in Trenholm Plaza, or the plaza with Piggly-Wiggly a bit up the road, they might have gotten some foot traffic from shoppers going to other destinations.

2) Signage

The main sign for the business read "cookies FOR SALE". If you were just driving by and looked over, your first impression would be that the building was for sale.

3) Lack of Marketing

Obviously I don't know what type of marketing the owners tried to do, but with their location, it would have made sense to try to get their cookies into Starbucks, The Fresh Market, Holey Dough, Hooligans & Books-A-Million at Trenholm plaza, if possible with a little placard like "We proudly offer Columbia baked Wally & Crumb Cookies!". I don't know how much freedom managers at national chains like Starbucks have to offer local products, but certainly Hooligans or Holey Dough would not have been out of the question.

4) The Product

As I said up front, the cookies were perfectly OK, but they were "hard" cookies, like Chips-A-Hoy. I think that goes against people's expectations for a "cookie store". When people go to a cookie store, they want something they can't get from Keebler or Chips-A-Hoy: freshly baked soft cookies. The hard cookie market is adequately served by the national bakers and by making hard cookies Wally & Crumb removed a reason to stop at their store.

Written by ted on January 21st, 2008

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2 Responses to 'Wally & Crumb, 4903 Forest Drive: Fall 2007'

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  1. This used to be the "Water Mart" back in 1999-03
    .. owned, I believe, by two brothers .. It was Cola.
    first venture in private water clubs, a short-lived
    one, for the most part, but, I believe it's sister
    location is still around on St. Andrews Rd. next
    to old Pig Wig on top of the hill .. albeit under
    different ownership, I'm sure .. I was an early
    member! Keep up the great work, Ted

    FISH

    9 Apr 08 at 10:58 pm

  2. Thanks! I kind of remember the water thing. I think Columbia water tastes pretty good, so I'm not in the market, but we had a service in an office where I once worked and they forgot (or something) to put in fountains, and it was pretty nice.

    ted

    10 Apr 08 at 12:36 pm

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