Business can be a lonely game, but it doesn't have to be.

Welcome to Boutique Chat, where we explore community over competition and how to scale your company with the balance and the happiness that we all seek.

We'll hear from product-based businesses of all types, retailers, e-commerce, and wholesale brands,

along with industry experts shaping the future of our industry.

I'm your host, Ashley Alderson from the boutique hub, and I can't wait to chat.

Hey guys, welcome back to the podcast this week.

I am so excited to be joined by a dear friend of

mine and I would consider you a mentor of mine as well, Cindy. Thanks for being on the podcast

today. Oh, Ashley, I'm so excited to join you. I'm really, really thrilled to visit with you

today. Likewise. I feel like every time you and I get together, we both, I think, are idea people.

And so we're always just, you know, squirreling on what's happening in the industry? What do you think?

You know, where do you think we're going next? And so I think to bring this conversation to our

community is going to be really exciting, whether, you know, those who are listening are a wholesale brand, manufacture, if they're a retailer, whether they've been

to market or not, I think there's just a lot of value that you're going to be able to share

with us. So let's dig into it. Let's start here. For those who don't know the history of Dallas

Market Center, take me back to how the Market Center got started and just kind of its growth

over the years. Well, you know, actually, the first building at DMC was built in 1957, and it was built by

our founder, Trammer Crow, and he subsequently built additional buildings here.

We are a total of five and a half million square feet, and so it spread amongst a campus,

and we serve lots and lots of different industries here.

And so if you look at it, we kind of break our business down by hard goods and soft goods.

And within the hard goods side of the business, we have gift, we have home, we have lighting, we have floral and holiday, we have housewares, and gourmet product.

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