.floatimg-left-hort { float:left; } .floatimg-left-caption-hort { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:300px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatimg-left-vert { float:left; margin-top:10px; margin-right:15px; width:200px;} .floatimg-left-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; font-size: 12px; width:200px;} .floatimg-right-hort { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px;} .floatimg-right-caption-hort { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px; font-size: 12px; } .floatimg-right-vert { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px;} .floatimg-right-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; font-size: 12px; } .floatimgright-sidebar { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; border-top-style: double; border-top-color: black; border-bottom-style: double; border-bottom-color: black;} .floatimgright-sidebar p { line-height: 115%; text-indent: 10px; } .floatimgright-sidebar h4 { font-variant:small-caps; } .pullquote { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 150px; background: url(http://www.dmbusinessdaily.com/DAILY/editorial/extras/closequote.gif) no-repeat bottom right !important ; line-height: 150%; font-size: 125%; border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} .floatvidleft { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatvidright { float:right; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;}
Two local women, two local stores and a combined 60 years in business; that’s what Toni Urban and Victoria Veiock have in common. And for the two women, who have thrived for more than 30 years in their respective stores, encouraging residents to buy local is not just part of their job. It’s what has kept their businesses alive.

“This year, the store is 30 years old, and I’m very proud of what we have done in the community, because I don’t believe there is a store that does all of the things that we do,” said Urban, who has owned Letter Perfect since 1978, when it was located in the Roosevelt Shopping Center. She decided to move the business to Clocktower Square in West Des Moines in 1992 when she noticed the region’s population base shifting westward.

Urban tried to maintain both the Roosevelt and the Clocktower locations for about a year, but realized one location was about as much as she could handle.

“Owning the store as a woman, to me, was very different,” she said, explaining that she still had a young child at home to care for when she first took over ownership. “It’s hard for young women, because young women have these ideas of what they like to see in a store and they open it and still have obligations at home, and so it’s hard to take care of a store full time and also take care of children, and for most of us, children are the priority.”

Luckily, Urban said, her family was not dependent on her income for financial stability and two of her children were grown and on their own.

However, for Veiock, who is also celebrating the 30th anniversary of her store, Wicker and the Works in Valley Junction, she was just 23 when she started her business, and had a lot on her plate, including being a mother and the main provider for her household.

“I think that as a woman, you learn how to balance a lot of things,” Veiock said. “And the hardest part was when my kids were little, because they want you to be there for them, to drive them to the apple orchard. Luckily, my husband was able to do a lot of that, and my kids know that I have provided a lot for the family, so they accept the fact that there are some sacrifices they had to make along the way.”

And for Veiock, those sacrifices have been worth it, especially when looking back on the past 30 years and realizing how far she has come – from a young woman who wasn’t taken seriously at trade shows in the ’70s to a successful business owner today.

“It kind of happened really fast,” she said. “First it was 10, then it was 20, then all of a sudden, I’m like, ‘Holy Toledo, it’s 30 years.’ That’s a long time.”

However, not every woman business owner will achieve a 30-year success, and Urban believes that’s because women-owned businesses, especially in Des Moines, are not well-capitalized.

“I think there are a lot of women-owned businesses that have come and gone, and unfortunately the thing that I find about a lot of women businesses is that they aren’t very well-capitalized,” she said. “And a lot of people dream of having a certain type of business, and they open those businesses without the capitalization that they need to be in business several years before they are going to make any type of profit, and I think that is a fallacy.

“I think that we can look at a lot of the children’s stores in Des Moines – they have literally come and gone. And there are some East Village stores that haven’t been open very long that are now closing.”

Urban said that operating a woman-owned business presents challenges, but recently, the economy has been the store’s largest hurdle.

“We always face hurdles, and I suppose the greatest hurdle is right now,” she said. “I think people are watching what is happening with the economy, and are watching where they spend their money. I think people are being cautious and so I think for many retailers, right now is a hurdle. It’s very difficult for us to put merchandise on sale and still pay the bills.”

Conversely, Veiock said her biggest challenges happened more than 20 years ago when a tornado ripped her store apart, and again when the Floods of 1993 inundated her store with more than three feet of water.

“There was a tornado in 1986, and it took off my roof and tore up the store inside,” Veiock said, recalling blown-out windows, destroyed inventory and damaged property. “The tornado really set us back. It was a crushing blow.”

Then, less than 10 years later, Veiock’s store was flooded, once again setting her back.

“A bad economic downturn doesn’t seem that bad to me,” she said with a chuckle. “I think I have lived through the good and bad. There are always good and bad times, and I just hope that I have learned to fill a niche in my community where people know and love the store and remember me and come back; that, I think, is important.”

Urban, however, believes that it takes more than a niche to sustain local businesses such as hers and Veiock’s; it takes support from the area’s corporations and community leaders as well.

“We are dependent on our local community to buy here,” Urban said. “If (the community) wants wonderful stores in Des Moines, then they are going to have support those stores, and that not only goes for the people who live in the community but the corporations who do business (here). They should be reinvesting their money in Des Moines, in West Des Moines, in the suburbs, in the businesses that are staying open for them. And the more (buying local) is stressed by community leaders, the better off the small businesses will be.”