08/19/2024
Starting Tuesday, 8/20 ALL Inventory is NOW 50% OFF during our STORE CLOSING SALE! We still have an awesome selection of quality consigned items and have added a lot of new inventory in the last few weeks!
Please help us spread the word with a like or share!
*Reposting original post from last month again below for those that this announcement may be new to.
The Homeschool Room will be permanently closing the Huntersville store location on September 14, 2024. Our Matthews store will remain open. We have spent more than 10 wonderful years in Huntersville with the intent to support families & educators in the surrounding areas by providing a place to buy and sell gently used children’s books, curricula, games, and educational items. When our family opened this second store location in the general Charlotte area we were unsure if our community could sustain two locations. While we desired to add additional store locations in other areas around Charlotte for a number of years now, we needed to determine how large of a local community was required to sustain our unique business model. Maintaining a physical, brick & mortar resource for in-person shopping comes with lots of expenses and after ten years, with making every possible adjustment, our Huntersville store location continues to operate as a labor of love. We hear all the time that everyone wishes a location was closer to them and while that makes us feel loved & valued, there simply isn’t a large enough community utilizing our services for a second location anywhere in the surrounding Charlotte areas. We would have opened additional store locations if they would prosper and not damage each other in the process. While it’s disappointing for us to see our efforts come to an end in Huntersville, we have met some amazing families and have been blessed to be a part of the local educating community there.
There are some updates for the Huntersville location as we prepare to close. (These changes do not apply to our Matthews store.)
*We are no longer accepting any new consignments in Huntersville.
*Closing SALE- Huntersville store-wide inventory is now 50% off.
*All sales are FINAL.
*New hours in Huntersville: open 11-5 PM, Tuesday- Saturday .
*Any store credit accumulated in Huntersville is available to apply to a purchase at this location until our final closing date.
*Consignors set up for check payments will receive a final check for any account balances over $50, once we close. As always, those consignors choosing check payments are also able to use any accumulated balance to shop in the Huntersville store until September 14, 2024.
*All remaining store balances after our Huntersville store closing (not shopped with or that meet the threshold for a check to be printed) will be transferred to the Matthews location. Any credits will be available beginning November 1, 2024.
*If you’ve brought in consignments that have not yet been added to your account, you will be receiving a call from the store staff allowing you to pick them up.
*Any consignor with active consignments in our store will be receiving an email with details for the option to pick up their items. Consignors will be welcome to come by the store and have staff print a list of unsold/available items that consignors can then locate & collect. We realize not everyone will want to return to pick- up any remaining items. It is not required but available for those that want to take their items back home. We will do our best to sell all consigned items before our final closing date.
PLEASE bring your own reusable bags/boxes for your things if picking up.
*Any consigned items not picked up or sold by September 7, 2024 will become store property and may be donated.
While we prepare to close the Huntersville location, exciting updates are planned for our original Matthews store! This fall we will be expanding the store’s retail space. We are also expanding our consignments holding area and employee work space which will allow us to accept & add more items quicker than ever before.
If you appreciate the services we provide, we hope to see you in our Matthews location! Only 30 minutes separates these two stores so while it may not be quite as convenient for some, we hope you’ll make the trip. We feel the quality, diversity, and sheer volume of educational items available at affordable prices always make it worthwhile from wherever you may live. We frankly haven’t been able to find a single retail store or even library branch that rivals our inventory of quality children’s books, games, toys and puzzles throughout all of North & South Carolina! We genuinely appreciate your patronage & support. We hope to continue the relationship at our original Matthews location.
Please give The Homeschool Room Matthews a follow or like so we can keep in touch. 🫶
**** EDIT ADDED: I want to add these additional thoughts since there are people suggesting local areas to try another store. It isn't that Huntersville was the wrong area. It's that Charlotte and the surrounding areas are only a single store market for our type of business. Everyone wants one closer, I get that. We would feel that way ourselves as a homeschooling family. We really love that people find value in what our family started over 20 years ago! Can’t tell you how blessed we feel! We have desired/pursued opening additional stores (Rock Hill & Concord were both also a consideration for years) but we know from the Huntersville store experience that another local store would not be a sustainable business for us. There are some homeschoolers in all these different areas around Charlotte but simply not the amount needed for the resource we provide. We have researched the numbers regarding home schoolers and they just aren’t there for this specific thing. Our model only works as a destination type business in the Charlotte area with the community size we have. In our opinion and experience, there simply can’t be multiple locations here.
Raleigh, NC is the only other area large enough in NC/SC but they already have a homeschool resource that is similar. Although we have been asked frequently to open there too (once the original owners sold the business), we would never open a store there knowing we would likely damage someone else’s family business that was already there. This area has a resource. It’s not our store model but still…. We wouldn’t do that to someone else. To further clarify why, understand that they didn't come in our store and then attempt to duplicate our unique family business either (that has been done by others). Raleigh was their own unique family business model. They opened around the same time we did back in the early 2000s. We still desire to bring this resource to other homeschool communities but they will have to be large enough (by our standards) to be able to sustain it.
We will appreciate all customers anytime they make into our stores. We know it’s a hike from most places around Charlotte especially with the traffic we have here now. We’ve driven ourselves down to Fort Mill monthly for many years. We see families from all over surrounding areas daily (and further) and we always tell them, especially when we know they traveled any distance that we greatly appreciate them making the drive over (and all of our consignors do too)!
Much love,
Scott & Liz
