When you drive along Virginia Avenue in Williamsport, Maryland, you’ll notice what looks like a shed dealer’s lot.
When you turn into the driveway, you see a house-like office set back, surrounded by sheds, gazeboes, pergolas, and other outdoor structures.
But when you park and begin to explore, you soon realize this is more
than a shed lot.
One structure houses antiques for sale. In front of another are cement lawn ornaments. The next shed over is a woodcarver’s shop with a welcoming sasquatch out front.
Across the lot, you see Adirondack chairs around a firepit, and further down, a display of Big Green Egg grills.
Step inside the headquarters, and you find much more than a sales office. You’re surrounded by shelves filled with jellies, jams, seasonings, more grills, Dutch ovens, cookbooks, hardwood lump charcoal, and many other products.
Then you see the smiling faces of Kelly and Meredith Moore offering you a Coke or water, welcoming you to Kelly Moore Sheds & Marketplace.
ENTREPRENEURIAL MEETING
The story of Kelly and Meredith begins about 10 years ago when the couple met.
“I owned an antique store, and I wanted to have a farmers market because I’m very into local food and I wanted to put a shed there,” she says. “I knew about this guy from Sharpsburg who sold sheds. I lived in Sharpsburg also, and I wanted to work with that guy because he’s local. I found him at one of the events and gave him my card and said I want to talk to you about having a shed at my antique store, a potential farmers market.
“So, we had a meeting to talk farmers’ market, and that was it. We started dating, and then a year later, we got married. We decided to merge our businesses. That’s why it’s Kelly Moore Sheds and Marketplace.”
“I didn’t realize we were going to get into all this, but she’s into it,” Kelly admits. “She has a talent for it. She has a passion for it. My main thing is to move buildings, but she has the Eggs she likes doing, and she does other events. She’s a good marketer.”
“I’ve been a Big Green Egg fanatic, an egghead, that’s what we call ourselves, for over 20 years now, and I knew I wanted to sell Big Green Eggs,” Meredith says. “I love cooking outside. I like cooking in Dutch ovens.
“It’s an eclectic store, and it’s interesting. People walk in the door, and they’re like, ‘wow, I love this place.’ I love hearing that.”
“With the hardwood charcoal, it’s not just Big Green Egg,” Kelly points out. “The hardwood charcoal is for anyone who cooks out and smokes. They will understand what we’re doing with that. There are so many flavors and brands, and we offer a lot of them here.
“We do honor systems, too. If they need charcoal, we’ll have it available to them at all hours of the day, seven days a week.”
Meredith says that their sheds go hand-in-hand with outdoor cooking because they sell portable outdoor kitchens—pavilions with storage areas—so customers can cook outside on a deck.
When it comes to the eclectic product selection offered by Kelly Moore Sheds & Marketplace, that’s Meredith’s area.
“I decide on what to carry in here because I am all about locally made products,” Meredith says. “All of the rubs and sauces are locally made, or they’re from Germany or Ireland, so I do some international stuff.
“I used to own a restaurant, so I’m a bit of a foodie. I’ve been called a serial entrepreneur. I lecture in a class at my alma mater, Sheppard University, about being an entrepreneur. I’ve been in business for myself for over 30 years.”
“Of course, we have pavilions and gazebos and things like that, too,” she says. “It’s really kind of Kelly Moore Sheds & Barbecue Marketplace.”
THE STRUCTURES
While Meredith has run one type of business or another for more than 30 years, Kelly started in the shed industry about 30 years ago, building decks and sheds, along with offering some home improvement services.
“I started out with a little shed lot, working out of a shed, working out of my truck, and then just progressed from that point on and just kept moving up and had a larger building and made an office out of it,” shares Kelly. “And then I got a brick-and-mortar building and went from there and just been growing ever since.”
“I was building sheds, panelizing them and then building them on site,” he says. “Then I met the Amish and determined that I could get the same quality that I was building and deliver them a little quicker as a complete unit.
“I got a trailer and started buying from the Amish, having them build the sheds, turn them around quickly, and do the deliveries.”
Kelly does some work on the sheds, if needed.
“We do some customization here,” he says. “Even if someone wanted something on the lot, they wanted to add a window or a door or something of that nature, I’ll do that here just to turn it around quickly.
“I build some small wood sheds and things like that, something minor, but nothing really. It’s quicker to get them from my builder.”
Kelly says their customers can “pretty much order whatever they want. We’re customizing with every order. We try to provide a building to someone, not sell them a building.
“So, if someone comes in and they want to put a car in it, or they want to put the mowers in it, or they’re going to store something for whatever reason, we’ll listen to them, and then we’ll help them determine how to lay the building out and to design it and suit their needs.”
He points out that he doesn’t use 3D software to help lay out sheds, pick colors, etc.
“I’ve tossed the idea around; at this point, I’m not using it,” Kelly shares. “It’s a little bit of overhead expense that I don’t want to take on.”
Kelly says that their most popular shed is the classic model, which is a little more detailed with trim and color details, hinges, door styles, taller walls, and so on.
OPERATIONS
Kelly Moore Sheds & Marketplace is a deceptively simple two-person operation.
“I’m mainly inside—the salesperson, paperwork guru, event planner, marketing person, social media person, all of that, which takes place inside the store,” Meredith says. “And then Kelly is more, he does site reviews, he does some site work. Moves the sheds around—he delivers sheds.”
“I go on every delivery, even if I’m having to sub it out to one of my haulers,” Kelly shares. “I go to every delivery, so I’m dealing with the customer if anything comes up. They came to us to place the order. They trusted us, so we’re going to be there all the way to the end.”
When Kelly delivers sheds, he uses a pickup truck and a trailer specifically designed for sheds, which he purchased out of the Lancaster, Pennsylvania, area.
“I don’t use a Mule, but I have access to a Mule,” he says. “I sub that out to one of my haulers who has the Mule. I can pretty much get most of my buildings delivered without a Mule.
“There are times when I use the Mule because it’s just more convenient. But with these new trailers today, and a skilled driver, you can get them into some tight spots.”
Occasionally, Kelly and Meredith hire help to clean up the lot, sweep out the sheds, tasks they can’t get to because they’re too busy.
Many Kelly Moore Sheds customers make initial contact through the website. After that, Kelly and Meredith prefer the customer come to the lot, or they’ll go to the customer’s house, rather than all online communication.
“They email us if they find us through our website,” shares Meredith. “We respond back to them and answer their questions and invite them to come see the sheds in person.
“Most of our foot traffic is either drive-by people or people who know about us, and when they’re ready for a shed, they’ll come see us. They’ll look us up (we have a lot of word-of-mouth referrals), and when they come in, we just find out what they are looking for and walk them around the lot.”
“We’re probably doing around 200 (structures a year), plus or minus,” Kelly says. “We’re trying to maintain that kind of number. I’m not trying to get them all, but once we do get it, we’re going to do good quality work on it and deliver it right.
On average, the time from customer contact/purchase to delivery is three to five weeks.
“If they custom order something, we can turn it around quickly if it’s a push for that,” Kelly says, “but generally three to five weeks is a normal time. That gives us an opportunity to get the site work done, if necessary, get the building ordered, get it down here, put it back on a trailer, or just send it straight to the customer from the builder.
“I can manipulate the load that’s coming down. Like if a customer needs it yesterday, I can manipulate the load so that their shed can come down sooner, especially if I have a stock building on the load. I can replace it or convert that stock one into theirs.”
“If the customer hires us to do the site prep, we’ll go out there and build everything,” Kelly says. “We’ll frame it out or grade it out, whatever suits them with the layout of the ground, their budget, and what they want to do with the site. But we generally frame it out with timbers, 4 by 4s, level it up, and then fill it full of stone.”
Meredith points out that Kelly does a site review for every sale. Even for some potential sales.
“Sometimes they want his advice out in their backyard to say, ‘I’d put it here, I would put it there,’” she says.
After Kelly visits a delivery site, he shares with the customers factors he noticed “to help them down the road, such as setbacks and building permits and conditions and regulations, HOAs, things like that.
“We keep abreast of it so we can make them aware of it, but we’re not here to tell them what to do. If they decide to do something, that’s their place, their property, they do what they want with it. But we just make them aware of certain things and let them make their own judgment on stuff.”
MARKETING AND MARKETS
Meredith admits the business’s marketing plan isn’t as “robust” as she’d like it to be because she’s also the salesperson.
“We do different things, like, of course, we use social media and our website,” she says. “We host events here, a few annual events. That takes about a year to plan. So, I’m constantly busy planning those events.
“We do cooking demonstrations on our Eggs to bring in foot traffic. We give everyone a Coke and a smile, or a water, those types of things, or coffee or tea. Those are the little marketing things that we do. And of course, we have key chains.”
One of their major events is the annual Williamsport Christkindlmarkt in December.
“We originally were going to do the Christmas market in Sharpsburg, Maryland, but this space became available,” shares Meredith. “We moved in eight years ago, and we decided to have the Williamsport Christkindlmarkt.
“What we do is we have vendors in all the sheds, and we put Christmas lights on the sheds, create a Christmas village. It’s a three-day, outdoor German-style Christmas market.”
Kelly says that some customers attending the marketplace do look at structures, but most are there for the holiday event.
“We get a lot of residual customers that come to the Christmas market who shop later in the year,” he says.
“We have closed some deals during the market also, where people came in, and they were thinking about (getting a shed) already.”
In those instances, the Moores write the contract to get the order going and get it delivered to the customer in a timely manner.
“One woman ordered a shed as a playhouse for her two grandsons, and Kelly delivered it on Christmas Eve while they were at church,” shares Meredith. “It was dark out, so they couldn’t see it until the next morning.”
The couple also hosts the Maryland EGGFest in May, a celebration of Big Green Egg ceramic grills, farmers, crafters, food, cooking outside, contests, music, backyard chickens, and Easter. It’s also a sock drive to benefit Children In Need Inc. of Washington County.
“There are two other events that we do, we just haven’t really gotten them off the ground yet,” Meredith shares. “One is a Dutch oven gathering, another cooking demonstration, because we sell outdoor kitchens. The portable pavilions can be an outdoor kitchen.
“The other event is the Route 11 Yard Crawl. The state of Virginia has this thing called the Route 11 Yard Crawl, and it’s 47 miles along Route 11, and we’re on Route 11. It’s one weekend with 47 miles of yard sales. Here in Maryland, Route 11 is just 12.7 miles, so we’re trying to get Washington County, Maryland, to do the same thing. And if they do that, then we’ll do our own little flea market event. We did it last year and the year before, just us.”
UPS AND DOWNS
Between the sheds and the market, Kelly Moore Sheds & Marketplace is open year-round, but that doesn’t mean the couple doesn’t face challenges like most operations.
“Certainly, there are regulations, county regulations and hauling regulations, that are challenging,” shares Kelly. “Competition, it pops up all the time. It comes and goes, but it pops up.”
“A lot of our competition is not as good a quality as ours,” points out Meredith. “Now, there are some that are as good, but the ones that are popping up are not of as good a quality, so it is hard to overcome and kind of educate the customer, ours versus theirs. It’s hard to compare apples to oranges.”
Being just a two-person operation also makes simple day-to-day operations, like book work and bookkeeping, challenging.
“We have some firms that help us out, CPAs, things like that,” shares Kelly. “It’s challenging to keep up with meeting the customers because we’re constantly working with the customer, and then it’s more than just writing the order, doing a site review, and then following up or going back out again. We may spend several trips with the customer before we actually deliver the product.”
“I’ve been in business for many years, and my degree is in business and marketing, so the paperwork is easy, but it piles up,” Meredith says. “You can’t ignore it one day, or else it just piles up.”
“The paperwork is pretty much the hardest part,” agrees Kelly. “Delivering a building, setting a building. That’s kind of the easy part.”
Meredith says, “Selling is fun. We both love our job. We both love what we do. That’s key.”
In terms of success, Meredith points to the customer service the couple provides.
“We have a lot of repeat customers, a lot of word of mouth,” she says. “And certainly, the events that we host here are successes.”
“We provide a one-stop shop,” points out Kelly. “If someone comes in here and they want a building for whatever reason, whether they know what a shed is or don’t know what one is, we can do the whole nine yards. From the time they order, we’re not regimented about how things go. We don’t demand a third down. We can work with people on things. And we’ll design it to suit them.
“We’ll go out and get a photograph of their home during a site review, and then I’ll review it with Meredith here and she’ll help choose the best design colors and layouts. We’ll pick up details in their home that they’re not seeing to help make the shed match their home. And we also work with the HOAs, so we understand what they want. When the customer does go to the HOA, we’ve kind of greased the skids for them already.
“We know what kind of questions are asked. We know what regulations they’re going to need. There are a lot of developments in this area, and I take the time, so does she, to understand them. We go to the sales offices, talk to them, find out what the regs are, what the setbacks are. We do some homework, just to keep our ear to the rail, as they say.”
FUTURECAST
Kelly says that the business has future growth potential.
“There’s a lot of competition. That’s in everything, you have competition, but I think it’s got potential,” he says. “I think when this country gets moving in the right direction, I think it’ll happen. The people will grow faster. The housing market, it’s going pretty good. They’re building houses all around here. They all need a shed, and they all seem to get one.
“That’s one thing when I went into business and thought about sheds. I started looking around, paying attention, and like every fifth house had a shed, so it’s definitely got the potential. I think there are a lot of good opportunities here.”
Part of the couple’s future vision is to start a consulting business.
“We’ve been knocking around ideas, and we think once we slow down, if we slow down, to merge ourselves into consulting with others, other shed businesses around the United States,” Meredith says. “We’re going to focus on the East Coast first, this side of the Mississippi.
“When we can find someone to manage this location, then we’re going to go full bore on that. The serial entrepreneur.”
The plan, she says, is to help a struggling or new shed business and do market analysis, competition analysis, and more.
“I think it’s a great business that keeps you out of the office,” says Kelly. “You see a lot of the country. You meet a lot of people. You’re on the road a lot, you’re moving. It’s not boring.”
“It’s important to love what you do and be passionate about it,” Meredith adds. “I love designing sheds. I love helping people design the shed, match their house, or complement their house. That’s outstanding.
“Some of our sheds that we build for people are phenomenal. They buy them finished as guest rooms or, during the pandemic, we sold a lot of home offices, insulated and finished on the inside.
“Most every shed we sell is totally customized. Whether they add an extra door, extra windows, a wall, and make two rooms, whatever. Our builder is very talented. If you send him a picture, he can build it.”
