As one decades-old school supply store shuts down, local owners say they're facing shifts in retail, education

"I'm crushed to hear this," wrote one on Facebook. "My memories of Stone's goes back almost 40 years."

The sadness extends to the store's owners as well. Carol Madison said it was a tough decision.

"It took a long time to make," she said. "... This has been kind of a labor of love to keep it here and make it work. It's just not enough. It breaks my heart to close. I know how many people depended on us."

In January, The Learning Center in Goldsboro closed when the owners retired after 38 years in the business. In Lexington, longtime school supply store All About Education shut down in early 2017. In Morrisville, Ladders, an educational supply store, closed a few years after it opened in 2013. Essentials 4 Learning in New Bern closed in 2014. So did Teacher's Aid in Wilmington.

"I'm hearing closings all over the place," said Diane Weisbrodt, who opened the Teach Me Store in Raleigh 27 years ago.

Stores close for different reasons, but both Madison and Weisbrodt said they face a rapidly changing landscape in both retail and education. These days, like any local store, they are competing with a growing number of online shopping options. At the same time, they are attempting to respond to new shifts in education that focus less on textbooks and workbooks and more on technology and apps.

Local school districts are plunking down big bucks for laptops, tablets and educational software, they say. Meanwhile, teachers and PTAs make up the difference as they fill classrooms with ABC and counting posters for classroom walls and teaching tools like base ten sets for math and clocks so students can learn to tell time.

[Schools] "are spending a lot of money on that as opposed to workbooks or things like that," Weisbrodt said. "Everything is going into computer systems and all of that. I can't deal with that. They have to go to the tech companies where they get bids for things."

Another change, Madison and Weisbrodt said, is the number of large purchases Wake County Public School System and local preschools are making.

Wake County, for instance, has 115 elementary schools, Madison said. Since January, Stone's has received orders from less than 20 of them though she continues to have a steady stream of business from individual teachers, parents and grandparents.

"The parents and teachers that shop here are wonderful," she said. "They've been our biggest supporters. But the schools don't. They just do what's easy and buy online."

Madison said she's visited all 115 schools, bringing catalogs and information about her competitive prices. She's even fielded a call from a school supply vendor, letting her know local schools were buying from them directly online even though the same materials at Stone's were sold for the same price and without the shipping costs. She said she sells more supplies to Robeson County schools than Wake County ones.

"They spend a little more money [online], they lose the taxes in North Carolina and the teachers and parents are losing this resource," she said. "That's just sad to me."

According to Heather Lawing, senior communications administrator for Wake County Public School System, public procurement law does not allow the school system to prefer any business over another business - even if it's local. For purchases of less than $2,500, schools can buy required items from any business, she wrote in an email.

Preschools and day cares also are changing their buying habits, hitting school supply stores hard.

Half-day preschools started buy fewer items about a decade ago, during the recession when they couldn't fill their seats because parents were unemployed or underemployed and needed to cut costs, Madison said. Many of those preschools, even though they've fully recovered, haven't returned.

"It's very hard to change people's buying habits," she said.

Meanwhile, a growing number of full-day day care centers have their own curriculum and don't require workbooks and other materials from a school supply store, Weisbrodt said. At the Teach Me Store, which is at 3520 Spring Forest Rd., Weisbrodt has expanded her inventory to meet the centers' new needs, including offering more toys that help kids develop their fine motor skills and items like multicultural picture books.

"They are still purchasing," she said, "but you have to find what it is they are purchasing."

The Teach Me Store continues to go strong. Last weekend, as usual, just before the start of school, was its busiest of the year, so far, Weisbrodt said.

"We're still here," she said. "We're still doing fine. ... It's challenging. It's different. Things change. It's not like it was 20 years ago."

At Stone's, Madison is preparing for a final few weeks of business. At some point, she'll put items on sale, but, right now, she hopes people will come in to stock up on what they need for the coming school year.

"My request is people buy what they need and help us pay for what we have," she said. "Some people are so sorry to see us go, and they are coming to buy everything they need for the year. I have customers coming in here crying they are so sad we are closing. We have very loyal shoppers."

Madison said the community will lose out when Stone's closes. No longer will they be able to spread out their bulletin board ideas on the showroom floor or open up a package to make sure the item is exactly what they need.

"There's no shrink wrap we can't re-shrink," she said.

Just this week, at local teachers' requests, she sent photos of items from the store they were looking for and even Facetimed one who wanted to get a closer look at the carpets Stone's offers.

When customers shop online, "you don't get that service that we have and provide," she said. "... It's a loss. It's a loss for everyone we touch."

Stone's is at 210 Hampton Woods Lane, Raleigh. It will be open through middle to late September. Ambiente Modern Furniture, another locally owned business, will move into the building this fall.