Fayetteville Furniture Store Blends the Present and Past

Red Door Living

Owner: Craig Soos and Betsy Harding

Address: 2826 Joyce Boulevard, #2, Fayetteville

Phone: 479-527-2591

Website: www.shopreddoorliving.com

E-mail: [email protected]

Hours: 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday

Startup date: October 2010

Store manager Ashley Williams had a ready answer when asked Red Door Living’s target clientele.

“Anyone who’s looking to furnish their home and wants to add some unique items,” said Williams, who holds a degree in interior design from the University of Arkansas.

The recently opened 3,000-SF space in Fayetteville is filled with a combination of Chinese antiques and contemporary art, furniture and accessories. Williams said a wide range of price points should appeal to everyone from young professionals just starting to buy furniture and/or art to more established clients looking to add pieces to their collections.

The art pieces range in price from $379 to about $1,800. Furniture items range from $399 to about $4,000.

Inventory is about a 50-50 split of old and new. Williams said owners Craig Soos and Betsy Harding hand-select all of the antique pieces, with new shipping containers arriving from China each month. She also said the store will be open on Mondays through Christmas in an effort to accommodate holiday shoppers.

Small Business Hiring Hasn’t Emerged from Slump

Small business owners continue to sit tight in terms of hiring new employees, according to results of a survey released Dec. 3.

The November CBIZ Small Business Employment Index, designed to serve as a barometer for hiring trends among companies with 300 or less employees, showed a 0.44 percent decrease in hiring for the month. That came after an increase of 0.73 percent in October and a decrease of 1.02 percent in September.

CBIZ Payroll Services manages payrolls for more than 3,000 small businesses. Its survey sample reflects an array of industries and geographies corresponding to markets its services throughout the United States.

“Small businesses will likely continue to lag the country’s larger employers,” CBIZ business unit president Philip Noftsinger said in a news release.

Noftsinger added that small businesses continue to face tough circumstances “related to insurance costs like liability and health, increasing energy costs and the well-documented quagmire surrounding our country’s tax picture.”

“Given these ever-present obstacles,” Noftsinger said, “the outlook for the small business owner still remains a conundrum that demands clarity.”

Of the 3,093 companies that participate in the November survey, 52.7 percent made no changes to their employee headcount. That was up from the 50.6 percent in October, and many owners cited potential changes in economic law, namely the Bush-era tax cuts, as a primary reason for their actions.