Decadence brings "instant joy" to Springsure

As soon as you walk in the door of Decadence Gifts and Homewares, you are visually hit by an amazing array of colour and goodies, as well as a bright pink neon sign declaring 'we love our customers'.

Springsure born and raised, Louisa Oppermann is the owner of Decadence and it's clear she loves her customers and, if the longevity of her business is anything to go by, her customers love her too.

As well as doing everything for the shop, she does the bookwork for the livestock transport business, SJ and LM Oppermann Transport, she is in partnership with her husband, Steven.

Starting out in Rolleston in 2000 as Brunfelsia Cottage, the business moved to Springsure in 2003, was rebranded as Decadence in June, 2009, and moved to its current premises in September, 2014.

Mrs Oppermann said before opening the shop she had been "the party plan Queen" and was the Avon lady in Rolleston selling cosmetics, skin care and perfumes for many years.

She said she used to store excess products in a special cupboard which then became the go-to for people needing birthday presents for their kids or others.

"It was just a backhanded comment when a friend said to me 'you should open a shop, you've got enough stuff in that cupboard'...that planted the seed," she said.

As she was sourcing second hand furniture for own home at the time, it made sense her first shop, Brunfelsia Cottage, sold secondhand goods.

"Brunfelsia is the name of the Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow bush which typified what I was selling. I got a second hand dealer's licence and it spun on from there," she said.

And while the shop was something she fell into because there was not much else to do in Rolleston, Mrs Oppermann said it now gave her "instant joy" and a sense of purpose.

"It fills my heart with joy and I always have a sense of pride, it is my third baby. It's taken so much of my time and effort, but I just walk in and it smells nice, it's pretty, it just makes me feel happy and that's what I'd like other people to feel," she said.

"There's so much of my shop in people's homes in the area and that brings a sense of pride to me."

Mrs Oppermann said she had always wanted the shop as a place for people to "escape life's burdens".

"It's just a sense of connection too where people will just pop in just for that chat," she said.

As to how she comes to choose what merchandise she stocks in her store, Mrs Oppermann recalls how a marketing guru at a trade show advised her not to be influenced by trends.

"He said 'if you don't have a passion for what you have it won't move' so that was a turning point because prior to that, I was just trying to stock whatever people wanted," she said.

"People would come in and say 'I need this or I need that and I think that's how we ended up with such an eclectic mix.

"But I had a really big push on three years, pre Covid, when a local councillor was going to Japan and she came in to buy some appreciation gifts and I just couldn't find things that I thought were made in Australia...and that's when I made it my ethos to stock Australian made."

When Covid hit and other shops were having trouble getting new stock in from overseas, Mrs Oppermann said she was fine because 80 per cent of her shop was stocked with Australian products made by 'mum and dad entrepreneurs'.

Mrs Oppermann said the reason she changed the name of the shop to Decadence was because the business had evolved.

"That's the thing with business, you've just got to keep changing, you've got to listen to your customers and you've just got to have that ability to change and to grow," she said.

Mrs Oppermann credits the longevity of her shop to her loyal customers and support from friends, Sue Patterson and Norma Rolfe, her mother Shirley Weston, and local lass, Amy Symons.

"The shop gives the community, the staff and myself something to look forward and somewhere happy to go to...and where you can get something affordable," she said.