Dec. 7, 2022

Downtown’s longest running boutique soon could have a new owner.

Chelsea Giedd, owner of Chelsea’s Boutique, has put the store on the market to focus on her next career path.

In a deeply personal announcement, Giedd shared that she has been working through multiple traumas from her past that led her to focus on a life outside of retail.

The store, which she started as a 20-year-old in Chamberlain, “was my first baby,” she said. “It’s hard. It has not been easy at all, and I’m going to grieve this for a while, but I also know I’m being called to something different, and the store is ready for a new leader. It’s not that I’m not passionate about it; it’s just that things have changed and shifted.”

Now a mother, Giedd spends part of her time at home while focusing about 90 percent of her business time on her second venture, My Purposeful Life, where she uses her skills as a Reiki master healer and teacher, and helps women navigate transitions and uncover their life’s purpose. She also offers workshops and events, and produces a podcast.

“I’m lucky I have such an incredible team” at the store, she said. “I can’t tell you the last time I worked the floor. I have really built up a business most entrepreneurs only dream of having where they get to be hands-up and do the things they love most. That for me is working one-on-one with my management team and building them up and working on the future of the business.”

She plans to continue operating the business, which has 16 employees, until a buyer is found. Unlike many boutiques, 90 percent of Chelsea’s business is generated in the store, with the rest coming online. It opened in downtown Sioux Falls in 2013 and has been at the current location at 220 S. Phillips Ave. for more than six years.

“I’ve never pushed online marketing, and that’s not the trend of the boutique world,” she said. “But the in-store experience and loving on our clients has always meant so much to me, and we’ve not been able to re-create that online. There’s a huge avenue of possibility; it’s just nothing that’s ever gotten me excited.”

Over the past year, life has brought multiple struggles for her, she shared. It also has pointed her toward a new opportunity. While working through sexual traumas she experienced in childhood, she attended two spiritual retreats that helped her begin to heal.

“It just made me realize I felt so alone, and there’s not a manual out there that says if you had this happen here’s a step-by-step guide,” she said. “It felt so lonely, and this is what I usually do if there isn’t something out there. I’m going to create it.”

She’s one of two U.S. women going through a two-year certification program with 30 participants worldwide to become a Shamanic womb healer.

“We’re really learning how to help women who have been through past trauma release it and not have to carry it the rest of their life” she said.

Her vision includes a potential retreat center in Costa Rica where women can focus on healing. Two in four women have some kind of sexual trauma in their past, Giedd said.

“And to me, that’s too much,” she said.

“I want people to know it’s OK to not be OK and OK to need help and OK to make hard decisions. One of the reasons I’m here is to share my story and share with other people and say it’s OK if you’re going through this too.”

Giedd said there are a few people she knows well who are considering buying the store, but nothing is finalized.

Ideally, she’d like to see a deal done by summer, but “I’m in no rush,” she said. “I won’t sell to just anybody. It has to be a perfect fit, and I have to know they’re going to love and care for it as much as I am.”

To learn more about purchasing Chelsea’s Boutique, click here.