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Business
South Carolina Business Review

Marketing SC Goods

By Mike Switzer
Published August 7, 2019 at 5:31 AM EDT
Ben and Andie Edwards
Mike Switzer/SC Public Radio

Every state is naturally proud of its local companies, local products, artisans and crafts people.  So why shouldn’t each state have its own online store to feature them? When our next guests became frustrated in their efforts to shop local, they decided to create just such a business.

Mike Switzer interviews Andie and Ben Edwards, founders of Grassroots General Store in Charleston, SC.

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Mike Switzer
After almost 20 years, Mike Switzer retired from Wells Fargo Securities in 2001 as Senior Vice President/Investment Officer and Certified Portfolio Manager. In 1999, he and his wife, Maggie, purchased and operated for eight years the Baskin Robbins ice cream store on Forest Drive in Columbia. They grew the store from a bottom-tier operation in the Baskin Robbins franchise system to one in the top 5% nationwide within three years, tripling sales along the way. While operating the ice cream store, Mike and Maggie received patents for a portable ice cream sink and fold-down sneezeguard they invented and in 2002 started Magnolia Carts, an ice cream cart manufacturing company, which they sold in 2013.
See stories by Mike Switzer