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When Anmarie Henderson, the visual merchandiser for Airport Retail Group, sees a hot new product at 9:30 p.m., she doesn’t wait until morning. She places the order right then and there on the Faire app. “I’ll get emails like, ‘Anmarie just placed an order for $6,000 of women’s dresses,’ ” laughs Megan, her business partner at Airport Retail Group. “And I’m like, girl, go to bed.”
This spontaneous buying approach—powered by Faire’s streamlined platform—helped Airport Retail Group excel in Faire’s pilot program, the 5% back holiday offer.
The program is simple: Faire analyzes a retailer’s historical purchasing patterns and sets a realistic but ambitious spending goal. If retailers reach that target within the timeframe, they earn 5% back in Faire credit that can be used with any vendor on the platform.
Airport Retail Group didn’t just meet its goal. It crushed it, exceeding its target by 43%. But the real victory wasn’t the rebate it earned, it was discovering a smoother way to run its wholesale business.
The challenge: Managing across five unique stores
Airport Retail Group isn’t your typical multilocation retailer. As local operators in the Minneapolis/St.Paul International Airport, each of its five stores has its own distinct identity. There’s a sports store stocked with Vikings Jenga games and team-themed puzzles, what Anmarie calls a “Taylor Swift store” focused on trendy fashion and accessories, and locations featuring everything from Spam merchandise to Purple Rain–licensed products.
“We really try not to carry the same product at each store,” explains Anmarie, who handles most of the buying. “Each store has its own identity, so each store needs its own different product. I don’t want to just buy from the same 20 vendors for each store—I want variety.”
This diversity created a logistical puzzle. The team was managing relationships with dozens of vendors, each requiring separate credit applications, minimum orders, and individual negotiations. “Our buying team used to be four people, and now it’s the two of us,” Megan notes. “Filling out a credit application for every vendor was a real pain.”
Step 1: Audit existing vendors
Before developing their 5% back holiday offer strategy, Anmarie and Megan needed to take stock of Airport Retail Group’s current vendor relationships. Anmarie compiled a comprehensive list of every supplier they worked with across their five stores.
This audit revealed important patterns in their business, like which suppliers generated the most revenue, which product categories were well-covered, and where gaps existed in their assortment.
The assessment also highlighted a key opportunity. As local operators in an airport filled with global brands, they knew authentic Minnesota products were their competitive edge. But the audit showed they were working with only 12 consistent local vendors—not nearly enough to give travelers the genuine sense of place they were seeking.
Takeaway: By taking a deep look at its vendors, Airport Retail Group identified where to focus its efforts for maximum impact.
Step 2: Move high-volume relationships to the platform
Armed with its vendor audit, Airport Retail Group developed a clear strategy: Rather than hunting for entirely new products, it would focus on moving its existing high-volume relationships onto Faire’s platform.
The approach was methodical. Anmarie began searching Faire for each vendor on the group’s list to see who was already available. “It gave me the opportunity to realize what vendors I could order from Faire that I hadn’t been,” she explains. “One of them was DM Merchandising, who I had been dealing with directly. It was great to find they were on Faire and our purchases from them could go towards our spending challenge.”
This discovery process proved remarkably successful. Anmarie moved roughly eight vendor relationships onto the platform during the challenge period, including one particularly large account that significantly boosted their spending numbers. “I was doubling down on those people that we already consistently ordered from,” Anmarie explains. “Just doing larger quantities.”
Faire’s infrastructure also provided crucial support for local vendor relationships. This behind-the-scenes platform support enabled Airport Retail Group to expand from 12 to 30 local vendors—all without overwhelming its small team.
“We’ve been able to bring more local vendors to the traveling public because Faire takes on the heavy lifting in terms of onboarding them, getting their SKUs all lined up, and making sure that they have consistent pricing, consistent visuals,” Megan explains.
Takeaway: By shifting established vendor partnerships onto Faire, Airport Retail Group immediately boosted its platform spending without changing its actual purchasing needs.
Step 3: Test new discoveries
Airport Retail Group also discovered that Faire’s platform provides built-in support systems, which made its goals more achievable. The recommendation algorithm became an unexpected ally in its growth strategy.
“Whoever is in charge of the algorithm that suggests different vendors—great job,” Megan says. “We kind of launched back into women’s apparel about a year and a half ago, and Faire has been fantastic at suggesting vendors with the same relative price point and general styles.”
Beyond algorithmic recommendations, the rebate structure itself became a form of support for experimentation.
“That credit was awesome for us to test out new vendors essentially for free,” Megan explains. “We could use the rebate credit to cover our wholesale costs, then retail the products at normal prices, so there was no financial risk in seeing if our customers would be interested.”
Takeaway: The rebate made it risk-free to try new vendors suggested by Faire’s algorithm, leading to several new successful product lines.
Step 4: Make “Are you on Faire?” your first question
The 5% back holiday offer changed how Airport Retail Group approaches new vendor relationships; Faire compatibility has now become its initial screening question.
“Every time a vendor reaches out and is interested in being in our stores, I always ask, ‘Are you on Faire?’ ” Anmarie explains. “That was never the top question I asked before.”
The shift reflects a practical reality: The administrative burden of onboarding new vendors outside the platform may not be worth it for most relationships.
“If they’re not on Faire, I’m less likely to try them out,” she continues. “I don’t want to go through all that paperwork and deal with high minimum orders when I don’t even know if the product will sell.” For a small team managing five unique stores, the streamlined ordering, consolidated invoicing, and lower minimums available through Faire have become non-negotiable advantages.
This “Faire first” approach has become so ingrained that Anmarie jokes about being inflexible with vendors who aren’t on the platform—though she’s quick to clarify that it’s really about operational efficiency rather than exclusion.
The platform has become their primary discovery tool. “Faire is kind of our go-to now,” Megan confirms. “It’s pretty much our one-stop shop.”
Ready for the next challenge
Airport Retail Group’s success in the 5% back holiday offer challenge wasn’t about dramatically changing its business—it was about strategically consolidating its orders. “It wasn’t hard to hit,” Anmarie reflects. “It just motivated me to look into different things during that time period that I went to purchase.”
As Airport Retail Group looks ahead to future opportunities, the team’s already strategizing ways to optimize their approach. Their advice for other retailers considering the challenge? Focus on consolidation first, then exploration.
“You can really buy stuff that’s trending and just have fun with it,” Anmarie explains. “Being able to buy just fun seasonal items and not have to dive into it in such a huge way—you can buy from a whole bunch of different vendors, make a beautiful statement, and not have to invest heavily in one vendor.”
The results speak for themselves: Airport Retail Group didn’t just hit its goal—it soared past it while simplifying its operations, discovering new local partnerships, and creating a more sustainable buying workflow for the future.
Ready to make progress toward your 5% back offer? Visit faire.com to start planning your next buy.
The 5% back sitewide offer is a limited-time offer for select North American retailers during the 2025 holiday season. This offer is fully funded by Faire. If eligible, a retailer will see the offer on their Faire homepage. For more information, visit faire.com/support
