ZICKFIELD'S FEATURED IN PUBLICATION

Zickfield's Gift Box, a downtown Cape Girardeau retail operation, is a Christmas store six months of the year.

"We start our Christmas efforts each year in July and work continuously until November when the annual `Christmas Open House' takes place," says Kent Zickfield. "We combine collectibles, Christmas, gifts and fashion jewelry to make a successful operation."

Zickfield's Gift Box was recently featured in "Gifts & Decorative Accessories," an international business magazine featuring gifts, tabletop gourmet, home accessories, greeting cards and stationery.

"We're really pleased that `Gifts & Decorations' selected us for publication in the magazine," said Zickfield. "There are a lot of trade journals for gifts and stationery businesses, but this is a premier publication, and it makes us feel that we are comparable to some of the stores in the larger cities and major markets."

Zickfield has two retail operations in downtown Cape Girardeau, the Gift Box at 27 N. Main, and Zickfield's Jewelers & Gemologists at 29 N. Main.

"Gifts & Decorative Accessories," a slick-paper magazine, is published by Geyer-McAllister Publications, Inc., in New York, and features articles of marketing interest of manufacturers, importers, and retailers.

"Christmas is present in our store six months a year," said Zickfield, who places Santa in a place of honor in a center-stage gazebo that he constructed himself.

Collectibles in the store have their own spots in the 5,000 square foot store.

"We try to avoid clutter," he said. "We want customers to be able to wander about without worrying they will knock something over."

Zickfield said that every thing is always in place for the store's annual November Precious Moments Open House, which takes place in November.

"More than 1,000 customers attended our open house last year," he said.

Zickfield said he did not originally intend for Christmas to be so important to the store.

"It just sort of happened when I realized that Christmas houses sold like mad all year around. It just seemed to grow," he said. "Today, the Christmas area is about a third of the store."

The customers some buy collectibles, others are strictly Christmas buffs are largely middle to upper income, said Zickfield. "We operate with a mailing list of 1,000 names."

What's hot at the moment?

Zickfield told "Gifts and Decorative Accessories" that a current hot item was a group of eagles, prices form $40 to $4,000. Also high on the current customer selections are a series of bears, bunnies, and people in country settings, especially a little boy on an inner tube, at $45.

"And the lighted houses are always good," he said.

Zickfield's Gift Box is an offshoot of the jewelry store next door, which was opened by Kent Zickfield's parents more than 50 years ago, in 1939. Zickfield's mother, Maxine, at age 77, is still its bookkeeper.

Although Zickfield is involved with the jewelry store, he designed and built much of the displays in the Gift Box.

"I used ideas from a number of places, including `Gifts and Decorating Accessories,'" he said.