If you’ve ever walked in Uptown Oxford down High Street and the smell of incense filled your nose, you probably just walked by Wild Berry.
Wild Berry was founded in 1971 by Miami graduate, Marc Biales, and began as a small leather shop.
“I graduated in ’71 but I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do,” said Biales. “I went to school part time and opened up a leather shop part time.”
Biales was selling leathers and crafts out of his shop, originally located where Buffalo Wild Wings currently is in Oxford on 10 E. Walnut St.
Shortly after beginning, Biales met a fellow leather shop owner in Cleveland who introduced him to the process of producing incense.
Biales learned the process and began selling incense in his store and continued to do so until the 80s when he began to restructure his business strategy.
“We were still making incense but it’s a pain,” said Biales. “I thought I’d rather buy somebody else’s product and sell it as ours, but I couldn’t find anybody that had a product as good as ours.”
Biales then devised the plan to create displays to sell his product.
“One thing I had learned in retail was that if you have a display, it sells much better than just having a product,” said Biales.
They began packaging in jars and painting the end of the incense sticks they were selling to generate more appeal. The products were displayed in large quantities. Biales took his idea to a boutique show in New York, and found immense success.
“It was pretty well received, ” said Biales. “Since then it’s just been a slow steady growth.”
Wild Berry has grown significantly since its opening, and is now the single largest producer of incense in the U.S. and the seventh largest in the world, according to Wild Berry store manager Kimberly Clark. With other businesses in Oxford so heavily reliant on business from college students, the success of Wild Berry is no small feat.
Clark manages the High Street location and said despite the lack of students at some times of the year, business rarely dips drastically.
“(When) students are gone … there’s parking uptown,” said Clark. “All the townies who don’t shop here all year long come uptown. We have almost as much business in the summertime because all of the town people who don’t want to bother finding a parking space come and see us.”
The Wild Berry store can be found at 15 W. High St. in Oxford. However, an additional warehouse building and store is located at 5465 College Corner Pike. The factory store opened in August of 2019 and is equipped with a showroom for wholesalers and a walk-in retail store. Online orders are packaged and handled in the warehouse as well.
“It was originally designed as a showroom for our factory because we have people come in from literally all over the world,” said Clark. “Mark wanted to just set it up as if it were a gift shop. Once he had stuff to make it a gift shop, he said go ahead and open it to the public.”
In addition to incense, consumers can find numerous other unique products at Wild Berry.
“We sell blessing herbs, crystals, fun blankets, tapestries, anything you need to decorate your dorm,” said Clark. “We have plenty of things for kids, loads of fun things for students and really great prices.”
Clark said the best way to experience Wild Berry is to simply come in.
“The best way for people to get to know Wild Berry is to come in on the ground,” said Clark. “We’re gonna have loads of new items you’ve never had in here before, so come and see them.”
