Two moms find niche with store selling used children’s items

By Dylan Scott

Wednesday, Jan. 12, 2011 | 1:55 a.m.

To fulfill their dream of opening their own business, Christina Ortiz and Wendy Passanante turned to the one area each of them knew best: being a mom. They reasoned that, with many families struggling to get by these days, parents need affordable options that don’t sacrifice quality when it comes to their children.

Enter The Children’s Shop, which the women opened in the fall on Silverado Ranch Boulevard. Ortiz and Passanante, with the help of their husbands, have stocked the store with gently used items at discounted prices that they said they would gladly give to their own little ones.

“We always wanted really nice things for our children, but we never seemed to have enough money to buy them,” said Passanante, 30, who has a 2-year-old daughter, Alyssa. Passanante, who has kept her other job as an advertising coordinator at the Flamingo, and her husband, Michael, have another child on the way.

“With the economy the way it is now, we thought there really was a need there,” she said.

The idea came to them in the spring of 2010 while shopping for their children at an area mall. A few weeks later, the duo decided to pursue it, shopping around for leases and pricing similar stores already in the valley.

Now, The Children’s Shop, 467 E. Silverado Ranch Blvd., is filled to the brim with clothes, toys, games and books for children of all ages, from newborns to young teens, boys and girls. Some of the more practical necessities -- cribs, strollers and car seats -- are also in stock.

“It’s something that we could have pride in and passion for, since we are moms,” said Ortiz, 31, as she held her 18-month-old son, Jacob, on a recent afternoon. Her husband, Tony, who frequently helps at the store, played with their 4-year-old daughter, Abygail, nearby.

“Anything in the store we would buy for our own children,” she said.

The couples run the store by themselves. The husbands painted the store’s interior -- pink on one side for the girls and blue for the boys on the other -- and learned to lay carpet during the store’s construction to save some money.

Their husbands, both natives of Las Vegas, have been friends since eighth grade, and they introduced their then-girlfriends about five years ago. The quartet quickly became close friends.

And since no one had much prior entrepreneurial experience, all four agreed that their friendship had helped the business venture.

“It’s kind of like a democracy,” said Tony Ortiz, who continues to work part-time as a civil engineer while helping at the store. “Everybody’s got an equal say. Everyone’s open to new ideas.”

They’ve also learned from their mistakes, Christina Ortiz said, and have adapted their selection to their customers’ tastes. Their inventory started with donations from their friends and family, Wendy Passanante said, and the shop now offers store credit for most items and even cash for hot-ticket products.

“Word is getting around,” she said. Repeat customers are routinely returning to the store, she added, and others have volunteered to hand out fliers and tell their neighbors.

Building a sense of community is important, Christina Ortiz said, and the couples’ own youngsters are regulars at The Children’s Shop and even offer to play with customers’ kids in the store’s play area while the parents peruse the aisles.

Although Tony Ortiz acknowledged it was “a little scary” to open a new business in recession-battered Las Vegas -- Michael Passanante recently felt the pinch when he was laid off as a supervisor at Mandalay Bay -- the two women said they felt confident they were filling a void for the valley’s families.

“This is our area of expertise, being moms. We know all about it,” Wendy Passanante said with a laugh. “We know what people really need, even if they don’t have the money.”