Former primary school teacher from Condobolin, Orange's Kristen Plante, 46, took over the Mary & Tex Curious Emporium store on June 6, 2022, from prior owners, Marianne and Terry Nagle.

But how the takeover offer originally came about was unusual, with the shop's former employee of four-years laughing when thinking back on the memory.

"I was just chatting away with Terry as usual, telling him how my partner and I were looking for some kind of investment opportunity at the time, and he said 'well, why don't you buy this?'," she said.

"[Terry] was always joking about things, so I didn't think much of it. But after I realised it wasn't a joke at all, my partner and I talked about it at home and we both got really keen about the idea.

"Now, here we are, nearly two years later."

Ready to take it on, it was an easy transition from staff member to business owner for Ms Plante.

She'd already considered the Mary & Tex partly her own due to a deep care she held for the store and its former owners.

But it was working in store Jenny's Classroom for the decade prior where her adoration for retail was birthed, where Ms Plante enjoyed every aspect of the industry and connecting with customers.

"I worked pretty hard in retail as my children were growing up, which was kind of tough at times with getting three little kids all organised and working the day, then coming home to do it all again," Ms Plante said.

"But I loved [working], because I always had fun and I loved talking with people.

"At the same time, I'd always thought 'how good would it be to own my own business one day'."

During the ups and downs of the pandemic years, Ms Plante said she's been in retail for so long she's used to seeing trends "come and go" during the years.

Her way of combating those tricky times is to stay upbeat, keep a positive attitude, and keep pushing on.

It's an important business strategy to Ms Plante, mainly because of the way negativity can imprint on shops and the people who go inside them.

"You just have to keep on going, keep your store stocked up with good things and keep a good, happy vibe about the place," she said.

"Otherwise, you get mentally bogged down too much, and you don't want people walking in thinking 'it doesn't feel good here'.

"We've always worked hard to keep that energy going [at Mary & Tex], even though it's a bit more difficult to pick the pace these days."

In the past, Ms Plante said trade frequency across the retail sector used to be fairly steady.

Of late, it's often unpredictable.

But retail turnover is expected to increase in the coming months, according to figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

In spite of the January 2024 data recorded a 1.1 per cent rise up from a 2.1 per cent fall in December, 2023.

The rebound is believed to be a result of cost-of-living pressures, where shopping trends shifted after retailers discounted many items.

"We're slowly forging forward now, and I think Orange is lucky in the sense that we have a pretty good tourist trade throughout the year," Ms Plante said.

"People are still coming to visit our region, and our trade trends tend to depend on what time of year it is, so it's hard to pick the busy days of the bunch.

"We could go from being flat-out one Monday, to being dead quiet the following week."

With one full-time employee and four working part-time, Ms Plante feels her store bases are covered well when it comes to meeting the current ebbs and flows of shopper numbers.

While the store boss says shoplifting can still be an issue at times, those and any future worries are outnumbered by a marked confidence in her wide range of products.

As for her own support when it comes to all other business dealings, Ms Plante credits her partner, and one of her biggest fans, John-Paul "JP" Jordan.

"JP is a pretty big part of Mary & Tex, too, he's one of my best supporters," she said.

"For a 'blokey' bloke to be picking handbags at showrooms with me and getting excited about the business, he's a good egg who keeps me laughing.

"I definitely couldn't do it all without his support , because he's also somebody that just lets me do what I've got to do without ever holding me back."