Photo contributed by Meg Hall

     Even with the support of encouraging friends and family, opening her own store didn’t come without some struggles along the way. 

     “Opening my own business was challenging because I am young; it costs a lot of money to open a business and a lot of banks and places that give you money won’t give the same opportunities they may give somebody who is twice my age, so I had to come up with all the money on my own,” Hall said. 

     Meg’s Boutique sells women’s clothing, shoes and accessories, generally to ages ranging from 14 to 35. She also rents out two booths in the store to two popular online jewelry businesses. 

     “I don’t partner with anyone; I have people who rent booths in my store like Parks Jewels and Ashley Hunt Accessories,” Hall said.

     Megs Boutique NC opened Oct. 24 of 2020 and is located on 644 East Arlington Blvd in Greenville, NC. Over 200 excited people lined up outside of her store by 9 AM, despite the store opening at 10 AM. The store's opening was a huge success and around 620 people came to shop at her store that day.

     “COVID has definitely slowed down shipping so getting my inventory in to open the store was really hard,” Hall said. “When I opened, I couldn’t have but a certain number of people in the store, so people would leave instead of waiting in line.”

     This is just one example of the negative effects of the pandemic has on local businesses. Hall also had to raise her prices of items because of the increased prices due to the pandemic. 
     “COVID has also made prices increase, for when I buy wholesale for the store, they have upcharged the sale prices because of COVID and people aren’t making enough money, so that makes me have to up my prices as well and that sucks,” Hall said.

     Despite all the obstacles of opening her own business, Meg's Boutique has been very successful since its opening. The store is continuing to thrive on social media and just hit 11.1k followers on instagram. 

     “Social media is probably 100% the success of continuing my business,” Hall said. 

Among all the things that this business brought Hall, the opportunities have been one of the best take-aways that has come from this. 

     “I have been featured in Her magazine this coming up season which comes out next month and ECU is going to advertise me for a whole year with all their football schedules,” Hall said. “I have also gotten to travel to go and buy inventory; I have been to Hawaii, LA, and Atlanta, and I have gotten to meet a lot of new people.” 

     Although Hall has always been driven and ambitious to achieve many things by herself like with the store, she did not do it alone. She has a role model that she still looks up to to this day. 

     “My biggest role model or the person I aspire to be like is Kelley Krainiak because she has worked really hard to build ECJVC in Greenville and has made it very big and successful even though it was small when she started, and that’s very hard in a small town,” Hall said. “I want to do the same with my business.”

     Hall says that she could have never pictured herself being where she is now. She is looking forward to continuing to maintain her success as well as expanding her business in the future. 

     “I’d like to grow more online because now that I have opened the store, I’m mostly in-store purchase so I’d like to be bigger online and sell to every state more often,” Hall said.

     Although she is mostly doing in-store purchases right now, Hall is looking to grow her online business. You can visit her instagram @megsboutqienc and her website https://megsboutiquenc.com.