How S.A.N.E. has grown its product line over decades in business
Karen Wohlafka was born in Long Island, New York to Marian, a home economics teacher, and Warren, a notions and fabric buyer. Right around that time, Marian had been discussing the expenses she and fellow home ec teachers had to deal with to get the supplies to teach sewing correctly, all while under heavy budget constraints.
Warren and Marian hatched the idea for S.A.N.E., Sewing Aids and Notions for Everyone, and launched it from their basement even as little Karen grew. Karen grew up picking orders and participating in the business as Warren sourced an ever-growing product line and Marian used her connections to home ec teacher conferences to distribute their catalog of affordable basics.
The business was a true success, moving out of their basement into ever-larger warehouses over the decades.
Eventually however, it came time for a change. Warren and Marian Wohlafka were visiting Karen who was in college at University of Dayton when they began considering Southwest Ohio as a potential home and business location.
In 1999, they chose their current 7,000 square foot warehouse space set back from Millville Avenue, and relocated to become Hamiltonians. After a few years, Karen chose to leave her engineering career and began leading the SANE business.
“I decided I didn’t want to work for a large company any more, so I moved to my family’s company,” she says. “We’ve gotten very lucky with our employee Amanda Debaun, who has worked with us since she was 16 years old and basically manages the entire floor now.”
S.A.N.E. grew primarily by word of mouth among home economics teachers, now often called Family and Consumer Sciences in the industry. They faced a unique challenge that schools usually require purchase orders to get supplies for these courses, and because S.A.N.E. was willing to accept delayed payment when other mail-order companies wouldn’t, they gained a competitive advantage in spite of the challenges of purchase order processing.
They keep their product line varied, expanding, and attuned to the needs of the teachers.
“There’s always been an ebb and flow to the things that schools want,” explains Karen Wohlafka. “Originally, it was all sewing notions, then we started into housewares. Every year we find hot items, things that we never expect. We joke all the time that if we talk about something we want to get rid of, eventually everyone wants one. Air fryers are everywhere, for example – every school is ordering an air fryer.”
They’ve greatly expanded their fabric selections as more and more schools offer electives in fashion design that require fabric and notions to be able to function. While their selection is now large and diverse, they are still fundamentally a small family business.
Their work is also seasonal, meaning that many of their workers are temporary, picking orders in July and August in anticipation of the coming school year.
“We do about 60% of our business in 10 weeks,” explains Wohlafka. “We work with teachers and high school students during that time. We play music and take breaks, keeping the environment fun as we pick the orders.”
The Wohlafka family loves the balance between being close to bigger cities like Dayton and Cincinnati when they miss the city life, while also having much more space to spread out on their property outside the Hamilton city limits. They also appreciate their local following in Hamilton.
“We offer a discounted retail rate for people who come and shop from the warehouse; no one in New York would have shopped directly from a warehouse, but in Ohio, people are happy to do it for a bargain,” says Wohlafka. “We started letting people shop Monday-Friday from 9 AM to 4 PM, and then we introduced twice-a-year Saturday sales – our next one is on November 13.”
S.A.N.E. is located at 2275 Millville Ave #1 and will be open on Saturday, November 13th with a special sale from 9 AM to 2 PM. They’ll also be open late, until 7 PM, on Thursday, the 18th.