BY EVA MAYS
Unique Consignment has been a fixture in Star City for a decade. The store specializes in the consignment of gently used home furnishings, decor and accessories.
Star City native Dominick Claudio opened Unique Consignment in a rented space in Star City in 2012. He already had years of experience in the resale industry. As a child, his uncles would take him to flea markets around Morgantown early on Sunday mornings. By the time he was in his teens, Claudio wanted to try his hand at selling.
“I was lucky enough that my mom supported it. She’d drop me off at the flea market and I’d set up my table, and she’d come back and pick me up in the afternoon.”
Shortly after opening the store’s original location, Claudio encountered a man who owned a property at 3438 University Ave. Formerly a bar, it had suffered a fire years before and had been vacant since. Perhaps intuiting Claudio’s passion for business and development, the man said Claudio should buy the building. Recalling the interaction with the owner, Claudio said, “I just had this light bulb moment where I was like, ‘man, I should buy your building.’”
Claudio, who now owns many Morgantown-area businesses and properties, said, “If it wasn’t for Unique Consignment, I never would’ve gotten into anything else. It was my baby. It’s my soul.”
He poured hours of his time into rehabbing the building, which became the official home of the business in 2013.
While there are many options for selling household items on the internet these days, consigning offers some benefits.
“Customers are looking for us to market their product better than they can individually and for us to sell it for them,” Claudio said. “We set it up and design it nicely. So that way, when somebody comes in, they can see that piece of furniture or that knickknack in the place that they have in their mind for it.”
Unique Consignment also has a Facebook page where it markets consignment items.
The consignment term is 60 days. When the items are sold, the store and consignor split the proceeds 50/50. As with many industries these days, the furniture market is experiencing high demand and low inventory due to supply chain and staffing issues, which results in rising prices.
“I saw with this most recent economic survey that it was something like a 14% or 15% increase,” Claudio said. “When you’re dealing with a market like that, rising prices sometimes are better for our items as well.”
A consignment application can be found on the store’s website, www.uniquewv.com.
Customers looking to add function and style to their homes may be attracted to Unique Consignment for its warm atmosphere and low-price tags, compared to the fluorescent lighting and sticker shock of regular retail stores.
“I like to just stop in periodically because the inventory is always changing and you never know what you will find,” said Katie Kolb, of Star City. “My most memorable purchase was a set of old-style metal and wooden theater seats that we use in the entry of our house. They are very unique and I love them.”
In addition to home furnishings, Unique Consignment also stocks items from Pinocchio’s Books and Toys, the landmark downtown Morgantown business that Claudio purchased in 2020. The store is open 11 a.m-5 p.m. Wednesday to Saturday.
For Claudio, it has always been about transforming Morgantown into the best version of itself.
“I thought if I could open up a store that could at least break me even in my life and add to our community, and that’s what I wanted to do.”
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