A feast of learning opportunities has filled Island Futons & Furnishings owner Rachael Mendes with resolve to change her business model.

She will close her store at 1804 N. Nimitz Highway (technically Kanakanui Street) in late February after trying to make a go of it since 2011. A liquidation sale is underway, with merchandise marked down 10 to 70 percent.

She learned from her small-businessman father that running a small business is feast or famine, that owners “need to save money during the feast to survive the famine,” she said. “I can say my business operated most times in a famine,” but from dream to reality to “financial failure and eventually locking the door one last time, running Island Futons has been a feast of learning opportunities,” Mendes said philosophically.

But it’s not all gloom and doom.

Mendes plans to shift to an online sales model, keeping inventory in storage space that caters to businesses near the Hawai‘i Convention Center.

Online sales for her will be a tad “ironic because I think Island Futons lost more and more sales to Hawaii residents shopping online,” she said, noting that “shipping larger furniture items to Hawaii has become increasingly easier over the last two years.”

Her storage facility overhead will be much lower than it has been to lease 5,000 square feet of retail space in Kalihi, and customers still will be able to see her merchandise at the new space, as well as online.

Mendes plans to continue to differentiate herself, especially from mainland-based sellers, with her own personal touches.

“I’m going to offer free delivery and setup, which is unique. I still can offer the same customer service I’ve been offering,” she said. Customers still can seek her out to repair parts or to mill a part for them. “That’s a service I still can provide,” Mendes said.

Some of her offerings also are unique, she said. “I sell organic stuff,” meaning organic futons.

An organic futon is made using organic cotton and is not treated with fire retardants, and they are popular with people who have chemical allergies or sensitivities, “and people who read how bad fire retardants” can be, she said.

Island Futons & Furnishings also offers futon covers and decorative pillows in various styles.

The transition of her business model also will require a redesign of her website, which now is intended to show off her product offerings and entice people into the brick-and-mortar store.

Separately and having nothing to do with her transition plan, the building recently was purchased by Allen and Nancy Woo, owners of food distribution company Manson Products Co. Inc. The siblings have a separate company for ownership of the building, which will be leased to another business or, at a minimum, used for temporary extra parking for Manson vehicles, Allen Woo said.

The longtime previous owners of the building used to operate a chicken processing facility at the site, and its sister business, a chicken hatchery, was nearby, Mendes said.

She opened Island Futons in 2011 after doing all the right things, including receiving counsel from SCORE, the Service Corps of Retired Executives, and obtaining a loan from the U.S. Small Business Administration.

“I had a lot of hope and confidence that the business could make sales and survive,” she said.

Open seven days a week, her husband delivered purchases during evenings and weekends when he was not at his own job. Then, “I had my first child during the anniversary of my first year in business,” she said.

By that time she had been able to hire two part-time employees, one for sales, the other for deliveries. “This gave me a maternity leave” and gave her husband a break from delivery duty.

Her second and third years in business “had ups and downs” in month-to-month sales.

Also, running her own business with her son Lincoln ever present “turned out to be far more difficult than I had anticipated,” she said.

“Some customers would coo at him to entertain him while I loaded their cars with purchases, while other customers seemed a little uncomfortable with a small child running around the showroom or babbling in the background of a phone call,” Mendes said.

However, for her it was an absolute blessing to have him always nearby and not having to worry about child care.

Island Futons hit a slump in 2015.

“I had been working to pay down my SBA loan, but in 2015 I had to take out another large business loan.”

Facing the reality that she again was in the same amount of debt as when she started, she thought about downsizing or closing, and until just the other day, she was reluctantly moving in the direction of closing.

“I found a good spot that just opened,” said Mendes, who now looks to transition, instead of closing the business she was so driven to open in the first place.