LD2 and Leah Daniel’s Ability to Draw People into the Downtown Space

 “If something is your passion, believe in that. I feel sure that people thought I could never make a consignment store a success,” Leah Daniel, owner of LD2 Market Shoppes, said. “But I put my special spin on it and did it differently than anyone has ever done it, and it works for me.”

Leah is passionate about creating a culture downtown that forces people to come and walk around for a while, as fifty percent of her customers come from out of town. She opened LD2 Market Shoppes in downtown Jackson in 2019 after owning her other consignment store in north Jackson and seeing the need for a space where vendors can sell their products in a physical space.  She immediately had numerous vendors who wanted to sell their products in her space, so they had to be specific with who they chose and how large their booths were. Her goal is to have a space with a variety of products and to serve her vendors well by selling their products to their customers. Leah says that forty percent of Americans have a side hustle, making her business of giving vendors a space to sell their products even more important. 

“Our vendors are like family, we work hard for them because it’s not my inventory in this store,” Leah said. “If we can give them a space to earn a little extra money, we want to offer that. It’s neat that we can do that here.”

People travel from all over to purchase certain products from LD2, like a type of specialty dog food one person drives four hours to buy. When these customers from out of town come, Leah encourages them to walk around and eat at a local restaurant or shop downtown. She wants them to feel the community she had in this downtown space. The support from people all over West Tennessee, not just Jackson, has been the most rewarding part of business ownership. 

Leah is passionate about using the potential we have downtown to create community for people. She recently purchased the building they had been renting so that they can allow more people to use their upstairs space or other areas in the building, creating a welcoming environment for other people downtown. Every year, LD2 has a Christmas market that usually has a line wrapped around the building for three days. She would love to partner with other businesses downtown and create an even larger event out of this market. 

LD2 draws people into the downtown space because it holds so many different vendors and products in one space. This mixes all different crowds of people and draws those people into the heart of Jackson. This is Leah’s desire, to give people spaces to sell products that give them joy and expression in life. 

“The more we can offer downtown as a city, the more we can pull the community down here.”