Cheers to a New Year: Reflecting on 2024 with The Last Best Store

As 2024 comes to a close, we at The Last Best Store want to take a moment to reflect on an incredible year and express our gratitude to you—our customers, vendors, and community. Your support has allowed us to continue growing, innovating, and strengthening our mission to support and elevate local arts, Montana businesses and manufacturers, and our vibrant community.

This year, we expanded our partnerships with Montana artisans and small businesses, welcoming new vendors into our store and increasing our efforts to help local makers succeed. We invested in growing our online presence, making it easier than ever to shop locally crafted goods, and introduced curated Montana-made gift collections to enhance the online shopping experience. We also deepened our community impact through partnerships with local nonprofits and fundraising efforts, and reinforced our role as one of Montana’s only officially licensed producers of collegiate athletics merchandise. From record-breaking holiday sales to our biggest Black Friday raffle yet, 2024 was a year of growth, connection, and meaningful contributions to the people and businesses that make Montana special.

As we step into 2025, we’re excited to continue supporting local makers, expanding our offerings, and bringing you the best gifts Montana has to offer. Thank you for being part of our journey—we can’t wait to see what the new year has in store!

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Supporting Montana Artisans: Growth and Impact in 2024

At The Last Best Store, our vision has always been to support and elevate local artists and makers, helping to showcase the incredible talent found across Montana. In 2024, we made huge strides in this mission by welcoming an impressive 48 new vendors, bringing the total number of Montana artisans we represent to 187. Each of these creators brings something special to our store, from handcrafted goods and artwork to locally made apparel and accessories, and we’re honored to be a platform for their success.

Our impact goes beyond simply selling products. We estimate that our total vendor payouts for 2024 will exceed $250,000, directly contributing to the growth of small businesses and independent creators throughout the state, but our support doesn’t stop at financial contributions. We also provide free services to help vendors focus on their craft, including:

• Inventory management
• Customer service and online order fulfillment
• Product photography and online hosting
• Organic and paid marketing
• Brand awareness and exposure to a broader audience

By offering these services, we ensure that artisans can spend more time creating while we handle the logistics of getting their products into the hands of customers. We’re proud of the partnerships we’ve built and look forward to continuing this work in 2025, supporting even more Montana makers in the year ahead!

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Expanding Our Online Presence: Milestones in Web Development

2024 was a landmark year for The Last Best Store’s online presence, as we took major steps to enhance our website, improve the shopping experience, add more vendors to our website, and more efficiently connect customers with Montana-made gifts. One of our biggest initiatives was the launch of curated shopping collections, designed to make gift-giving easier and more accessible. Our Gifts for Every Occasion collection and Holiday Gift Guide helped shoppers find the perfect presents during the busy holiday season, and this feature will continue to grow in 2025. In fact, we’re already working on expanding our Valentine’s Day Gift Ideas collection to bring thoughtful, locally made gifts to even more special occasions throughout the year.

Beyond website expansion, we also took a deep dive into SEO-driven web development, making it easier for customers to discover our store organically through search engines. Coupled with a significant investment in online advertising, these efforts resulted in an incredible 350% increase in online sales. The combination of improved visibility, a more user-friendly website, and strategic marketing has allowed us to better serve our local and national customer base, ensuring that Montana-made products can reach an even wider audience.

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Giving Back: Supporting Community & Conservation Efforts

At The Last Best Store, we believe that supporting our community goes beyond retail—it’s about giving back, amplifying important causes, and using our platform to make a difference. One of our key contributions in 2024 was serving as the official producer and retailer for Missoula Pride merchandise, offering their gear in-store, online, and at the annual event (which was expanded to two days this year). This partnership helped raise funds for Missoula Pride, made Pride merchandise accessible to our community, and boosted awareness for LGBTQ+ programs and initiatives in Missoula. We also provided merchandise for Wilderness Watch fundraising events, and participated in the 25th annual Can the Cats Food Drive.

Through these efforts, along with other fundraising partnerships, we were able to contribute over $6,500 to local non-profits this year. Our commitment to community-serving organizations continues to grow, and we’re actively working to establish more partnerships with Montana-based organizations that align with our values. As we step into 2025, we look forward to strengthening these collaborations, finding new ways to give back, and ensuring that even more purchases have the potential to support causes that matter to our customers and our community.

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Supporting Montana athletics: A Year of Growth & Inclusivity

Our sister company, Blue Peak Creative, is one of the only officially-licensed producers of Montana collegiate athletics merchandise in Montana, and The Last Best Store is proud to partner with them in order to provide University of Montana Grizzlies and Montana State University Bobcats apparel and accessories. This year, we continued to offer a robust selection of University of Montana Grizzlies apparel and accessories—both in-store, online, and at our mobile vending booth outside the Washington-Grizzly Stadium during home games. 

Our goal has always been to give fans high-quality, locally designed and decorated gear to celebrate their school spirit, and this year, we took several steps to improve our offerings based on community feedback. For instance, we implemented a more inclusive ordering strategy, which allowed us to carry a larger selection of 3X-6X shirts—ensuring that every fan could find apparel that fits comfortably and stylishly. Additionally, in response to the MSU Bobcats football team playing in the national championship, we expanded our selection of MSU Cats apparel, providing fans with more ways to support their team during this historic moment.

Listening to our customers and partners, and making our selections more accessible and inclusive, remain top priorities for us moving forward.

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Strengthening Communications and Engagement: Social Media, Events, and Giveaways

In 2024, The Last Best Store made a concerted effort to increase community engagement—both online and in-person. We expanded our social media presence, posting more regularly on Instagram and Facebook, launching brand new TikTok and Pinterest accounts, and growing our audiences on our more established platforms. These efforts allowed us to connect with our community in fresh, exciting ways, bringing more visibility to the incredible Montana-made products we carry.

Beyond social media, we also improved our community engagement and communications through a relaunched blog (ta-da!) and more consistent email updates (sign up for our newsletter at the end of this blog)—keeping our audience informed about new products, upcoming events, and exclusive promotions. In-store, we worked to create a more dynamic shopping experience, offering fun promotions, giveaways, and opportunities for customers to interact with local vendors and artisans. 

One of our biggest events was our popular Black Friday Raffle, where we gave away over $3,000 worth of high-quality, Montana-made products to seven lucky winners! In addition, we showed our appreciation to the vendors who contributed by raffling off two gift cards exclusively for them. We are deeply grateful to all the artisans and makers who participated and helped make this event such a success. We’re excited to keep the momentum going, further expanding our online presence, hosting more engaging in-store events, and continuing to find meaningful ways to connect with our incredible community!

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Holiday Champions & Surprises: Best-Sellers & Staff Favorites

The 2024 holiday season at The Last Best Store was nothing short of amazing, and we want to give a special shoutout to a few of our top-selling vendors who made it extra special! Our Holiday Champions for the year were:

• RJS Engraving & Design – Known for their handcrafted 3D laser-cut wood art pieces, this collection showcases incredible precision and artistry. Featuring wildlife and wilderness scenes, each piece is meticulously crafted from intricately-cut and painted wood layers, creating stunning dimensional artwork that has been a favorite among our customers.

• The Gnome Realm – Bringing charm and whimsy to our brick-and-mortar store, The Gnome Realm specializes in adorable handcrafted gnomes and gnome companions. Using foraged and upcycled natural materials whenever possible, each gnome is truly one of a kind, complete with a unique name, attire, and aesthetic theme. These delightful figures have become endearing favorites among both our in-store customers and staff and we hope to get more of their products online in 2025.

• Knotty Pine Works – This collection of handmade wooden games and signs is crafted with remarkable detail, making it a standout favorite this year. Their beautifully carved and painted cribbage boards, in particular, flew off the shelves faster than we could have anticipated—a testament to their quality and appeal!

Other standouts of the season? Montana Candle Company’s handcrafted candles were nearly impossible to keep in stock! Their rich scents and locally inspired designs made them a holiday must-have. We also saw a surge in demand for Montana-grown and -blended teas and coffees, with Evening in Missoula Tea by Montana Tea & Spice Trading becoming a seasonal favorite. To meet the growing interest in locally crafted beverages, we introduced new tea gift sets, including the Herbal Tea Gift Box Trio and 6 Tea Gift Box Sampler, which were met with enthusiastic customer demand.

As we head into 2025, we’re excited to continue showcasing Montana’s most talented artisans, bringing in new handmade, locally sourced products, and curating even more unique gift collections to match our customers’ interests. Thank you for supporting these incredible makers, and stay tuned for more exciting additions in the new year!

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Looking Ahead to 2025

As we close the book on 2024, we are filled with gratitude for our incredible customers, vendors, and community who have made this year so memorable. From expanding our support for Montana artisans and small businesses to deepening our community partnerships, growing our online store, and celebrating a record-breaking holiday season, this year has been one of growth, connection, and shared success.

We are excited for everything 2025 has in store—new vendors, fresh collaborations, more curated collections, and even more opportunities to support and showcase Montana-made products. Whether you’ve been with us from the beginning or just discovered The Last Best Store this year, we thank you for being part of our journey.

Wishing you a Happy New Year filled with joy, adventure, and plenty of locally crafted treasures. We can’t wait to see you in 2025!

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Arielle Smith is a mom, a recovering academic, and an aspiring wordsmith who helps The Last Best Store to manage an assortment of projects, programs, and data. She harmonizes these and other intellectual pursuits with an eclectic range of creative activities, including making mixed media art and jewelry (Presents of Mind Design) and botanical skincare products (Dr. Smith Botanicals).