Courtesy / Box of Maine
The new space in Brewer includes warehouse and fulfillment space plus a retail store.
July 25, 2022
After blowing the lid off since 2020, gift business Box of Maine expands space nearly fivefold
Courtesy / Box of Maine
Since opening Box of Maine in 2017 with 400 square feet of space and later 1,500 square feet, owner Daniel Finnemore recently moved to 7,000 square feet in Brewer.
In September 2019, a startup that now sends Maine-themed gift boxes around the world traveled only a short distance of its own: from a 400-square-foot space at the UpStart Center for Entrepreneurship in Orono to a 1,500-square-foot spot in Old Town.
“We had been doing very well for ourselves working out of that 400-square-foot office,” Box of Maine's president and owner, Daniel Finnemore, told Mainebiz.
Finnemore, 34, credited UpStart for the guidance the incubator provided, which allowed him to outgrow the program and buy his own building, 2 miles away at 695 Stillwater Ave.
“Triple the space. I was thinking that would be more than enough,” he said. “But then COVID hit in early 2020 and online sales skyrocketed 200%.”
Finnemore and his team instantly ran out of room to stock products and fulfill orders.
“We had so much product in there and we went from fulfilling 6,000 boxes per year to 20,000 boxes per year,” he said. “We had customers all over the world. When the border shut down, people from Canada could no longer come to Maine and they were ordering mass quantities of food and gifts from us. We shipped to Mexico, Australia, Europe, Japan.”
Even as the pandemic eased, demand remained steady. So Finnemore this year moved the operation to a 7,000-square-foot space at 34 Abbott St. in Brewer, where he has his warehouse and fulfillment center and is also opening a new retail outlet.
A ribbon-cutting is scheduled for Aug. 2 at noon.
In conjunction with the ribbon-cutting, Box of Maine has pledged to donate $1 for every gift box sold in August and 10% of all in-person sales made during the grand opening to the Durgin Center, a facility at 274 State St. in Brewer that’s part of the Eastern Area Agency on Aging.
The company has donated a portion of proceeds monthly to numerous Maine nonprofits since November 2019.
Maine by mail-order
Box of Maine moved to Brewer in April.
“We’re excited to welcome the Box of Maine to Brewer, starting out as a small mail order business in the UpStart building in Orono, growing to a little larger space in Old Town, and now have relocated to an even larger space in Brewer,” said Brewer Mayor Michele Daniels.
“Box of Maine has been a big hit with my own children, who all live out of state. They look forward to receiving their favorite Maine foods in their mailbox. The whoopie pies have been a big hit.”
Box of Maine has been in business for six years. It sells over 100 different Maine products and works with over 40 small Maine businesses.
Finnemore was born and raised in Bangor.
“It’s been really fast-paced,” said Finnemore.
Sales in 2020 drove the company to quickly scale up. But there was a big challenge: lead times that were growing longer due to supply chain issues.
“Our box manufacturer went from being able to fulfill our orders in two weeks to 16 weeks,” he said.
So the team began ordering packaging and products well ahead of time and rented storage containers to hold them.
“Fortunately, I had enough capital in the bank that I didn’t have to take out any lines of credit,” he said. “But we got very close. We just purchased as much as we could.”
By the end of 2020, with eight to 10 employees working in the small Old Town building — “pretty much bumping elbows” — his inventory was liquefied.
Typically, the online gift box business would peak during the December holiday season, then slack off for a couple of months. But 2021 started strong and remained so throughout.
“I think if we’d had more space we could have done even better,” he said. “We had to turn fulfillment off because we couldn’t keep up.”
He realized he needed more space.
“We were going to kind of cave in on ourselves because there was no place to put anything,” he said.
Finnemore began looking into buying larger property in Old Town, but couldn’t find anything affordable. Sales began to slack off a bit this year when inflation hit.
“But an opportunity to lease a 7,000-square-foot building in Brewer presented itself,” he said.
Hiring
In the move, the company kept its existing team and has hired three more full-time employees since May. There are now five full-timers and two part-timers.
The revenue trend this year hasn’t surged the way it did in 2020 and 2021. But the company is still holding strong in the expanded space, Finnemore said.
It’s also found ways to cope with costs that are increasing due to inflation. The cost of many products from his sources has gone up, shipping costs have gone up three to four times, and the cost of corrugated boxes has risen a multiple as well.
“So to keep our prices the same, we’re negotiating with our shipping carriers and buying more ahead of time to get price breaks, now that we have more room,” he said.
Finnemore buys Maine products by the pallet, such as Maine wild blueberry jam, Moxie soda and whoopie pies.
“Red hot dogs are kind of a fascination,” he said of his customers.
Gift boxes come in several sizes. Customers go online to choose what items they want.
“And it’s always changing because we’re always bringing in new products,” he said. “We work with Maine businesses from Aroostook County to southernmost Maine.”
Examples of the latest offerings are pickled fiddleheads, pickled eggs and gallon jugs of maple syrup. The company also added its own line of branded merch. “We have our own hot sauce, blueberry pancake mix, whoopie pies,” Finnemore said.
Retail shop
New as of this month is a retail gift shop at the Brewer location.
“We have customers and tourists and locals coming,” he said. “They can build the boxes themselves, then we can ship it for them or they can take it with them.”
The business has been entirely financed by earnings revenue combined with low overhead.
Finnemore's goal for the future is to design and build his own facility.
“We’re just waiting for the market to settle a bit,” he said.
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