When people saw the prefabricated camp store show up on a truck last year, most assumed it was just a new building on the property.
This week’s YouTube video shows what actually happened behind the scenes.
Not just the chaos of taking delivery on a Wednesday and opening by Saturday, but the real story underneath it all… how two people who swore they’d never run retail again somehow ended up building a scalable retail model for glampgrounds.
When we bought a rundown motel in 2020, the last thing we were trying to do was rebuild a retail brand.
We’d already lived that life: multi-million-dollar stores, huge teams, overcomplicated product lines, endless overhead. We weren’t going back.
And yet…
A tiny self-serve corner store at The Rex changed everything. It showed us that hospitality retail plays by different rules: simpler operations, better margins, zero staff, and customers who actually want to buy something during their stay.
Then Ferncrest amplified it.
Our original camp store wasn’t perfect, but it made an undeniable point: every single guest walks through that door, and almost all of them buy something.
Having a hospitality business is like having a store that people spend 2 days in browsing. Do you know how valuable that is?!
That insight led to the our next store… the one that we setup a few months ago and feature in this week’s video. A factory-built, plug-and-play retail shop that can roll into any future Ferncrest location and start generating revenue immediately.
But before you think “factory built” and “prefab” are bad words… note that we went this route because it vastly simplifies things (which every glampreneur knows is important when you have a million things on your plate). And for us, more importantly, it’s a model and a system we can replicate for franchisees across the country.
It looks great and provides an exceptional, and fun, shopping experience.
This is the heart of glamping done right:
Keep the experience unforgettable while keep the operations simple.
This week’s video shows the whole journey:
The lessons from our early career retail failure, the unexpected rebirth of retail inside our hospitality business, and the 72-hour sprint to open the new store at Ferncrest Promised Land.
Watch the full behind-the-scenes video here:
We Built a New Camp Store in 72 Hours
And if you enjoy videos like this — entertaining, educational, and built to make you better at running your glampground — it would mean the world to us if you subscribed while you’re there. I know everyone asks this, but it’s true… growing the channel helps us create even better content for this community.
Happy Glamping!
Brian Linton
