Vision leads to growth for Burke Decor

By Kalea Hall

khall@vindy.com

BOARDMAN

Erin Burke has always had a vision for business. Take one step into her flawless, chic decor store in Boardman, or one click on her Burke Decor website, and that is obvious.

The website she started in 2007 grew to have thousands of visits per day and continues to grow because of her vision.

“I am still learning,” Burke said.

The 37-year-old Mercer, Pa., native remembers the first call she got from a Burke Decor customer.

The gratification of having that first customer still seems to humble Burke, who grew up starting her own businesses.

Burke moved to California at age 12 and naturally stepped into the maker role. As a sixth-grader, she started a T-shirt business. Through college she would make pillows and had some small fashion lines. Business is in her blood. Her father, Gary Burke, is the owner of Truck World in Hubbard — where she also works full time.

“I like the independence,” she said.

After college she worked in New York for an economist as a research analyst. When she became involved in real estate, she realized the need for another decor outlet. She was converting existing properties into condominiums in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and had to shop for items in the local market.

“There was so much competition because there had been so much devastation,” she said.

She thought it would be fun to build a website — and a business — from the ground up.

“I didn’t know anything,” she said.

But that didn’t stop her, and neither did the resistance from decor lines to leaving the traditional market for the e-commerce market. With her business and renovation background in hand, she took to the Internet with just a few decor lines.

“And then we got a great little piece,” she said.

The magazine Blueprint plugged Burke Decor, and from that came 100 sales and the start of a customer base.

“I think we got a lot of pop from that,” she said.

Burke’s theme was to keep it unique, while maintaining reasonable prices.

“A big trick to e-commerce is finding something that others don’t have,” she said.

She also wanted to pay close attention to the aesthetics of her site.

Burke brought her friend Elise Flashman on board in the business. Flashman, who has a background in interior design, works as the creative director for Burke Decor. She works with Burke to develop the look of the website.

“Erin always had a vision for a much bigger company,” Flashman said. “She has never seen this as a small, little project.”

Today, Burke Decor has customers throughout the world, more than 60 distributorships and a Burke Decor line of products.

In 2012, Burke decided to see how the business worked outside of the e-commerce market and opened a boutique on U.S. Route 224. About 90 percent of the customer traffic still comes from the Web, but Burke likes for her customers to know there is a physical store in existence.

Colorful pillows line one side of the store, and at the other end are classy displays of unique decor. The physical store and online store both have an extensive collection, and something for all of its customers in Ohio, Los Angeles and outside the U.S.

The company’s exponential growth through the past seven-plus years has much to do with its exposure in magazines such as Lucky and Country Living. The website also receives traffic from blogs.

The hope is to reach 25,000 visits to the website per day and eventually expand the brick-and-mortar locations.

“We see it being much, much bigger,” Flashman said.

Burke wants to make sure the next steps for the business happen gradually to be able to maintain the growth. Burke also has some plans for other Web-based businesses.

“My goal would be to get in front of a really large audience,” Burke said. “Having more propriety products creates more business.”