Home and Happiness, a retail store focusing on cooking entertaining and home accessories, is open at 3442 N. Southport Ave. Home and Happiness plans to be more than just another retail store by offering the customer learning opportunities with the products they sell. Kimberli Cossé de Brissac, the store’s owner, believes all customers are entitled to a shopping experience that leaves them feeling good, feeling confident and has designed the store to give the customer an opportunity to visualize the products in a home setting and offer creative ways to use everyday products through advice cards throughout the store and one-on-one help with the customer. In addition, the Home and Happiness Web site is designed as a magazine that provides information to enable the individual to learn more about cooking, entertaining and home accessories.
‘Today’s customer demands more from their shopping endeavors. They want to be inspired, have fun, shop when they want, be pampered and alternately be free to roam,’ said Cossé de Brissac. The Home and Happiness retail store and Web site are a shopping experience that aims at developing connoisseurs and retaining loyalty through exceptional customer service and relationship building. Cossé de Brissac, ‘The strength of our brand will be built through quality and care we put into products and our in-depth knowledge of our core content areas’. This belief comes from Cossé de Brissac’s education. She graduated from Texas Tech University in 1991 with a BS in architecture, BA in marketing, and in 1994 a MS in architecture and an MBA in management. Immediately after graduating she moved to Paris, where she worked in strategy consulting with major European Manufacturing firms.
During her time there she enrolled in classes both at the Cordon Bleu and Ecole de Beaux Arts to learn more about food and design from a different cultural perspective. In 2000 she was transferred to Chicago where she worked with Financial Service’s clients. Cossé de Brissac described what turned her from a consultant into a store owner: ‘After many great years learning about business and working with some very creative and intelligent people I decided to make the leap and take my knowledge and expertise and combine it with my passions in cooking, entertaining and home accessories. In 2002 I left my corporate job and decided to open a retail store. However, I knew what it was like to be in corporate America and how much time and effort was available for these passions realistically. Most of the magazines and television shows were either too complicated or too time consuming. That is when I decided I would offer my customers great prices, quality products and compile the overwhelming amount of information out there and simplify it so people can still learn while maintaining their valuable free time.’
Home and Happiness is proud to be a part of the Lakeview neighborhood, where the owner also lives.
www.homeandhappiness.com
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