New children's consignment shop, dubbed country's largest, to open Saturday in Durham

Beanstalk will be located at Westgate Plaza, 3400 Westgate Dr., Durham, just off of 15-501 near Interstate 40.

Beth Pendola said the two decided to open the store because they wanted to make it easier for moms to consign their children's gently used clothes and toys. Consignment sales are fun, she said, but can be labor intensive for moms. And, at national consignment store chains, consignors can sometimes end up earning very little.

"We want to make it super simple for moms," she said. "It takes less than five minutes to drop your things off here. And that's the first time."

Here's how it works at Beanstalk: Bring in your kids' gently used clothes, toys and gear, along with maternity clothes. The store will then tag and price the items and enter them into its software system.

As far as pricing, "we try to find that sweet spot where it's fair for the consignor and a bargain for the shopper as well," Beth said. "We feel like, through the years, both my daughter and I have worked at Kids EveryWear for so long ... we've been seeing things sell for that long and we see what goes and what doesn't go and what price it goes out."

Once things sell, consignors will get either 45 percent of the sales price if they choose to be reimbursed with cash or 50 percent if they choose store credit.

Pieces will stay on the floor for 90 to 120 days and will be discounted a percentage each month. Once pieces are discounted 75 percent, they'll become the property of Beanstalk. All proceeds from the sale of those items will be donated to local charities, which customers can nominate. The store will select a new charity each month.

Beth said she believes that Beanstalk will be the largest permanent children's store in the nation when it opens based on the store's square footage. It fills up 15,000 square feet of space in what was once a Tuesday Morning.

The store will consign sizes newborn up to kids size 18 and maternity. It also will accept toys, equipment, books and other items that kids need.

Beth said she's thrilled to create something of this scale with her daughter.

"She's always had this entrepreneurial spirit that I have," Beth said. "One day, this will be all hers. My goal is to pass it on. It's super fun. It's really neat to work with your child after working that hard together all of those years."

The store will be open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Saturday with extended hours until 8 p.m., Thursdays. The grand opening is set for 10 a.m., Saturday. They'll be raffling off gift certificates every hour.