Phillip and Shelly Edge Bring Wild Birds Unlimited to Their Hometown of Mooresville, North Carolina

Wild Birds Unlimited franchisees Shelly and Phillip Edge, who currently own the Charlotte and Huntersville, North Carolina stores, just opened their third store with the brand in their hometown of Mooresville. As if opening a third store wasn’t impressive enough, the Edges were able to do it amid a global pandemic.

“About 12 years ago, I walked into my first Wild Birds Unlimited store in Savannah,” said Shelly. “I didn’t even know what it was, but the owner was so engaging that I walked out with my first bird feeder and became an avid bird lover. When I moved away from Savannah because of my job at the time, I found myself missing that bird hobby. Soon, I found out there was a Wild Birds Unlimited location in Charlotte and met the owner. That is when I really got interested in retiring from my high-stress job and franchising with Wild Birds Unlimited.”

Since its founding in 1981, Wild Birds Unlimited has grown to over 345 locations, all serving communities of people who have a passion for nature and bird feeding across North America. Led by a company-wide vision to connect people with nature, Wild Birds Unlimited guides its franchisees along a rewarding career path that brings with it numerous cultural and lifestyle benefits.

The Edges were able to purchase the stores in Charlotte and Huntersville from owners who had been around for nearly two decades. “Since day one, we’ve wanted to open a store in Mooresville considering it is where we live,” said Phillip. “When we signed four years ago, the goal was to open five stores in five years, so we are well on our way. It has been a challenging time for everyone, but we forged ahead, and I am so thankful we did.”

Shelly and Phillip had already received approval for the third location and were negotiating with the contractors when COVID-19 hit. “We had basically just signed on the dotted line for the real estate,” said Phillip. “It was scary at first, but the biggest issue was getting the permits because everything was on lockdown. Although we weren’t able to start with construction until mid-May, we were able to open only a little behind schedule on June 10.”

As the Edges point out, the Wild Birds Unlimited team has always offered exceptional support. “The team is super supportive and always available — we had never been supported in our careers like that before,” said Shelly. “Chief Development Officer Paul Pickett helped us meet our goals from day one and our business coach, Besty Westfall, helps us work towards becoming part of the enterprise group of stores — the best-of-the-best locations that meet all of the standards. For the third store, the team worked with us and encouraged us throughout the whole opening process.”

Since the Edges’ first two locations were transfers, they didn’t have to worry about construction. Luckily, when it came time to start the site selection and build-out process for the third store, the Wild Birds Unlimited team made the process as easy as possible for the Edges. Their business coach came down to help choose the right location in Mooresville.

“Betsy really helped us navigate through the ins and outs of real estate,” said Shelly. “When opening a new store, you really have to do your due diligence and protect your investment. The team helped so much with marketing and PR in order to plan through the grand opening and what that would look like during the coronavirus pandemic. We were able to do it in a way that supported our growth goals and vision for the store while also promoting safety.”

Of course, it wasn’t a traditional grand opening. “We wanted to make sure we were drawing new customers into the store while also being careful about safety,” said Phillip. “All of our associates wear masks, and we have acrylics to protect customers and employees. We were able to promote our opening and our safety measures through social media and email and had a great experience.”

When it comes to how they handled COVID-19 at their other locations, Charlotte saw a huge spike in cases early on, so the Edges immediately jumped into safety mode and made sure all employees wore gloves, masks and sanitized regularly. Shelly and Phillip wanted to make sure they’d be able to communicate with customers safely and help them clean their feeders, build feeders and more.

While both the Charlotte and Huntersville stores had to close to customers once the pandemic was declared, they were still able to offer online ordering and curbside pick up. Each Wild Birds Unlimited franchise location has its own online platform and controls which products from a list of approved inventory they put up for purchase on the online store. The online store is linked to each brick-and-mortar location’s POS system so that pricing is locally determined.

“A lot of people depend on us for feeding animals so I registered to become an essential business after a few weeks of lockdown,” said Shelly. “After three weeks or so, the Huntersville market was ready to open again, so we put the safety precautions in place already. We held back on Charlotte for two weeks, as we wanted to promote the well-being of employees and the community. Eventually our employees came to us and asked us to reopen. We were well-tuned to our community and our team, even if our hours were a little shorter.”

Now, with the Mooresville store up and running, the Edges are looking forward to the future and are excited to continue serving their neighbors through their love of birds, nature and community.

Wild Birds Unlimited is the original and largest franchise system of backyard bird feeding and nature specialty stores with more than 300 locations throughout the United States and Canada. The investment level to open a Wild Birds Unlimited location is $170,382 to $281,606. To learn about franchising opportunities with Wild Birds Unlimited, please visit www.wbufranchise.com