Through the years together, started for us in 1980 as a sophomore and junior in high school. Married in 1983, we have traveled a path which lead us to this opportunity to own and operate our own ecommerce store.
Through our early years of marriage, we both work for major companies. Jeff worked for a national tire chain and I worked at a national grocery chain. We both eventually gravitated to working for smaller independent companies where we both learned more about the inner workings of a company. Hard work, dedication, and integrity lead to positions in management for both of us. We both learned a lot about running a company. Working for the small independents also allowed us more time with our four children.
December 2003 through a curve ball at us as Jeff was called up for his first deployment with the Army Reserve. After his last of 5 deployments in the summer of 2012, we started talking about owning our own business so we could spend more time together. This was also a point in our lives where we were empty nesters and had become grandparents. We dreamed of having an online store in which we could have our grandchildren work with us.
September of 2018, WE DID IT! We started our online presence in Ecommerce. The biggest decision was the name for our new business. Carter and Coles is named after our oldest and youngest grandsons. We had more research to do and a whole lot of mistakes to make. One could say we perfected mistakes before we perfected what to carry in our store. We tried some different items but, after attending a wholesale show we discovered specialty foods and unique home items were the direction we really wanted to head in. Oddly enough, we had sworn off food in the beginning. But soon realized people really enjoy tasty food. We now make it our goal to find unique culinary items you will be confident in buying, making and indulging in. But, we didn’t stop with food, we have also search and found some wonderful home decorations, apparel items and even children’s items.