BOLOfide retail liquidation store finds new home in downtown Owatonna
BOLOfide owner Bryan Young stands outside the boutique-sized retail liquidation store’s new downtown location at 216 N Cedar Avenue. Staff photo by Jonny Clubb
After seven years of doing business in the Owatonna area, the BOLOfide store has found a new home in the middle of downtown.
BOLOfide is a boutique-sized retail liquidation store, meaning that it buys pallets of items from Amazon and other major retailers before selling them at 50% or more off retail price. The store carries a wide range of products, including electronics, groceries, clothing, and more.
Bryan Young, the owner of BOLOfide, said that the store always has a coffee section, and all clothing items are priced at $3.98, with common brands including DKNY, Eddie Bauer, and Gap.
Each Friday, BOLOfide has a weekly blowout sale from 7-10 p.m. that Young describes as “Black Friday every Friday.”
“We try to have a really fun, festive environment (on Friday nights),” Young said. “We do lots of giveaways, and we give toys to the kids…so it’s fun.”
Young said that when the business moved to Owatonna seven years ago, it was selling products on Amazon fulltime. The business soon began doing “shed sales” for products that had not sold. Then, in 2019, BOLOfide opened a brick-and-mortar store on the south side of town before moving into a space on Front Street about a year and a half ago.
Young quickly realized that the location on Front Street was “way too small for the demand”. That prompted the move downtown.
BOLOfide has been busy since its grand opening downtown on August 2.
“It’s been great,” Young said. “I think this is the perfect location for us. We have a decent sized community already but being downtown…has been great.”
As a retail liquidation store, BOLOfide got its name from the common reseller's acronym BOLO which stands for “be on the lookout.” Meanwhile, the second half of the name “fide” stands for “for incredible deals every day.”
New Downtown Store
• BOLOfide
• Located at 216 N. Cedar Ave., Owatonna
• Hours: Monday-Thursday- 11 a.m.-7 p.m.; Friday- 11 a.m.-5 p.m. and 7-10 p.m.; Saturday- 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.
______________________________________________________________________________