Jeanna Duerscherl | The Roanoke Times

The Gift Niche owners (from left) Vickie Taylor, Laura Duckworth and Marie Lovell talk with customers during a busy Saturday afternoon at their store. The three women met through the social and service sorority Beta Sigma Phi.

Optimism and four Christmas club savings accounts marked the humble beginning of The Gift Niche.

Four women opened this downtown Roanoke boutique in a small space at the City Market Building in 1982, selling ornaments, wreaths and flower arrangements.

They're still together, having weathered storms and changes. This year is the shop's 25th Christmas season, the crucial sales period that can make or break a retailer's yearly financial performance.

For owners of The Gift Niche -- Marie Lovell, Laura Duckworth, Vicki Taylor and Vickie Mullins, who is a silent partner -- this Christmas could be different than the others. Like many retailers throughout the year, they already have noticed that consumers are spending less because of financial pressures from high gasoline prices and grocery costs.

Lovell said she's optimistic about the holiday season, but that's partly because some of the recent Christmas good times are still fresh in her mind.

Three years ago, sales and traffic were so busy that "we were having to reorder [merchandise] on a consistent basis," she said.

Typically, the women order items in January to sell during the following Christmas season.

Although the shop had a large sales day Friday afternoon once shoppers cleared out of the malls from the door-buster sales, Lovell worries that "the economy is having a big effect on downtown and local businesses."

She wouldn't disclose specific sales figures or goals.

Lovell and her business partners, whom she refers to as sisters, had the vision for a crafts-oriented boutique while they were traveling home from a convention in Northern Virginia for their social and service sorority, Beta Sigma Phi.

Stopping to shop at Williamsburg Pottery, the women, all stay-at-home moms, discussed the fact that not many craft stores existed in the Roanoke area at the time.

And the country design look for a home was just becoming popular, Lovell said.

The day after returning to Roanoke they began searching for a store location, settling on the market building space. Rent was $95 a month, and the space was so small that they called it "a niche," Lovell said.

Pooling money from their Christmas club accounts, about $2,000 total, the women financed basic renovations to the spot that now partly houses Tavern on the Market, a restaurant.

After less than a year, they moved The Gift Niche to its current location at 101 Market Square, creating a full-service florist and selling handcrafted items. The selection changed when the women began attending gift shows and buying collectibles.

They later stopped selling only crafts and florals for a fuller collectibles business.

Boyds Bears and Seraphim Angels were some of the first collectibles that they sold. Some of the best-selling items now are garden flags and Virginia Tech collectibles, such as ties, mugs and picture frames.

Business hasn't always come easy.

A flood hit Roanoke in November 1985, destroying 70 percent of The Gift Niche's holiday merchandise.

While chatting at the store's front counter Monday, Lovell and Duckworth recalled cleaning up the merchandise that they could save and selling it on the sidewalk while the shop's flood damage was repaired.

In the late 1980s, they opened a second location for The Gift Niche at Ridgewood Farms retail center in Salem, but they closed the store after one year because it was too difficult to maintain, Lovell said.

Five years ago, they expanded their original 800-square-foot space in downtown Roanoke to 1,200 square feet in a neighboring spot.

The women have seen other small shops come and go in downtown Roanoke, but The Gift Niche has remained.

"They have been very consistent in what they do," said Pauline Wood, who owns Shades of Color, a store on Market Street in downtown. "The local people really respect that, and they love the inventory they carry."

The collectibles business thrives largely because "the people who collect are loyal," Lovell said.

The items that are popular change from time to time. For example, now Willow Tree and Jim Shore items are selling fast, she said.

The five-second rule is the women's secret to a somewhat peaceful existence as business partners and friends.

"You can pout for five seconds and then get over it," Lovell said.

They make decisions democratically.

A majority opinion wins out, such as if several want to buy a certain item at a gift show but one doesn't, Duckworth said.

And the women rotate the days that they work.

Lovell, Duckworth and Taylor run the store on the same day each week, and they alternate Monday, Thursday and Saturday shifts. Mullins does not work at the shop regularly.

During the holidays, the women double up working on Saturdays. The store is open on Sundays through December.

The farmers market area retailers look to Dickens of a Christmas, the city's annual holiday celebration, to boost sales. The festival is held on the first three Friday evenings of December, and many of the stores are open for it.

"It's a big draw," said Vicki Harwell, who owns Blue Ribbon Boutique on Market Street. "That's the one [festival] that's the most beneficial" to market area businesses, she said.

With the way the calendar falls this year, however, the festival will not begin until later in December, on Dec. 7.

Meanwhile, Lovell, Taylor and Duckworth aren't planning to retire anytime soon, though each is 60 or older.

"We said we would do it as long as it's fun," Lovell said. "We're still having fun."