Who: Mom and Popcorn
Where: McKinney, Texas
Deep in the Heart of Texas there is a family-owned business called Mom and Popcorn that is the source of every kind of candy, as well as over 50 different flavors of popcorn. The shop is the only place I’ve ever been where I wondered if my life was incomplete because I’d been missing out on Jalepeño-flavored Popcorn.
We caught up with the Mom and Popcorn family, and owner / operator Dave Willson, at their shop in Texas to poke our heads inside their candy shop and see what sweet things we could find.
Can you tell us a little bit about Mom and Popcorn?
In the shop, we make and bag our own popcorn, and then sell all sorts of candies that have become a bit hard to find. It’s a really nice old-timey feel that is a lot of fun for us.
We bought the business from the original owner who was ready to sell. Initially, we intended on helping the owner sell the business, but as we dug in, we realized we had already put in new technology and automated the processes and there was an opportunity here for us. Since my brother Jonathan and I both have retail experience, we decided to buy the shop to update the operations and the marketing.
You’re located just outside Dallas, Texas in a town called McKinney. Tell us about the community there.
McKinney is the number one best city in America because of the way the city planners have worked to set up a good mix of retail and residential. It’s a really flat place (because it’s Texas), but the planners have done a great job of mixing up the landscape with houses and trees and the like. The people are great, lots of entertainment. And my kids really enjoy the community.
What software do you use to run the biz?
All of our sales go through Vend, we run our ecommerce through WooCommerce, and we are very evangelical users of Xero for our accounting.
How has moving the business to the cloud impacted operations?
Previously, we were having to go to the front of the store to get a physical count of inventory by site, record it by hand, and then look at a paper catalogue to order via the phone from the supplier. By adding this technology, we’re able to save so much time and money.
For example, now we know there is some inventory that takes 12 months to move and we shouldn’t ever re-order it because it doesn’t move quickly enough. The technology helps us provide products that people actually want. We’ve gotten rid of around 8-10% of our inventory that wasn’t selling, and that has allowed us to bring on another 100 items that are selling better.
We’re still in the process of optimizing the processes and operations of the company. Our time and frustration saving is going to be significant. At the end of the day, we’ll take an 8 hr a week process and turn it into a 2 hour process.
– Dave Willson, Owner / Operator, Mom and Popcorn
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About Austin Gunter
Austin helps run the North American marketing efforts for Vend. Growing up around his family's Honey Farm and store in Texas, he has a passion for small business in his DNA. Austin is a writer, a traveler, and a live-music lover. Ask him what he's reading this week!
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