Walking into Ashlins provides customers a look at  the things owner Debbie Kellum loves.

She fills the boutique with clothes by designers like Johnny Was and Brighton jewelry along with gift items, such as Tyler Candles and Thymes products, and home decor brands, such as Barboglio and Eastern Accents.

“What’s nice about having so [many] different kinds of inventory is you get to enjoy all of it,” Kellum said.

Although Kellum may not have known she would be the owner of a retail shop when she was in school, she said she did grow up in retail. While Kellum was growing up, her mother worked in retail. After school she said she would visit the store where her mother worked.

“I’d go up there and every day, I’d start at one end of the jewelry counter and go all the way to the other end trying on the jewelry and just looking at it,” she said.

Kellum followed in her mother’s footsteps, working in retail during high school and college. She then took a break from the working world to raise her two daughters, Lindsay and Ashley. Once they graduated from high school, however, Kellum said she needed a new focus. She opened a small store in the old gun shop near her current store in 2001.

“I started back there [in the old gun shop] and had a small square footage. [I] had a blend of home decor, clothes and jewelry—kind of like we’ve got now,” Kellum said. “That was kind of before it was popular to do that—to have that eclectic look in your store.”

When it came time to name the store, she chose a name that came from her family.

“When I was trying to come up with a name for my store, I named it Ashlins after [my daughters],”
she said.

Both of her daughters have worked in the store, Kellum said.

“That’s been really nice, too, to kind of pass on what my mother passed to me,” Kellum said.

Kellum does not just include her daughters in the shop, but her 14-year-old Chinese pug named Lexi.

“She’s the store mascot,” Kellum said. “She’s been coming with me almost since I opened.”

For Kellum, making sure her customers have a happy and helpful experience is essential. And she said she makes sure everyone she hires likes working with people.

“If your staff loves people, then they’re going to treat them really well and offer them great customer service,” Kellum said.

The store has a steady stream of customers, Kellum’s assistant Lois Ann Perryman said, and they range in age predominately from 30 to 80. The clothing sizes the boutique offers range from extra small to extra large.

Kellum said she and her staff try to help make sure each customer leaves feeling satisfied.

“That’s kind of what we try to do—is make everybody [who] comes in, when they go out, feel special,” Perryman said.