Founding board member and president of the Saranac Lake Community Store Melinda Little stands by the storefront on Wednesday afternoon. (Enterprise photo — Jesse Adcock)

SARANAC LAKE — The Community Store will be renamed as part of a larger re-branding effort, accompanied by an e-commerce site to market the store’s local goods, likely to launch in late November.

Melinda Little, founding board member and president of the Saranac Lake Community Store, said that two years ago, she and other board members heard around town that the store’s message had been muddled. The board then moved to have it confirmed by the PR firm GreatRange.

“Many people see the name of the Community Store and immediately think its a thrift store, or a consignment shop,” Little said. “Thrift stores are great, but they speak to a different audience.”

Doug Haney, founder of GreatRange, said the firm collected data from three streams — focus groups populated from the surrounding area, phone calls to residents and on the street interviews in front of the Hotel Saranac asking questions like “what do you think?” Haney said. “What does it mean to you?”

According to Haney, at the outset, a new name for the Community Store wasn’t necessarily what they had in mind for the re-branding process. He said that after collecting public opinion data, it became clear that “people wanted the store to be renamed. To be rebranded.”

Little said that she and the rest of the board took it for granted that the message of what they felt the community store was about — locally produced items, home goods, hardware, and furniture — with a focus on durability and affordability, would remain constant.

“That initial story carried us for quite a while,” Little said. “And we didn’t pay much attention to the brand.”

That initial story ran on the front page of the New York Times’ website, after catching the attention of journalist Amy Cortese, who often writes about localized investing. “We got a lot of attention,” Little said.

“The most powerful thing the Community Store has going for it is its story,” Haney said.

But public memory is fickle — since the store’s opening in 2011, Little said there’s been enough turnover in town that people forgot what the store was about.

“We took it for granted,” Little said. “We weren’t presenting a cohesive look or message.” That’s why, she said, the board contracted GreatRange for the re-branding, to remind Saranac Lake and a wider audience, that the store is “a department store put together by, for, the community.”

Using Wefunder, a crowdfunding site for start-ups and small businesses, the Community Store has received, as of publication, $67,750 in investments. Plus offline investments, Little said the store is $2,000 short of their goal of $80,000.

According to the Wefunder website, the Community Store turns over yearly revenues of $360,000, but needs around $420,000 to become profitable.

“We’ve come close,” Little said. “This has not been a money pit.”

Little said the launch of the e-commerce site, also designed by GreatRange, will likely put the store into profitability range.

Haney said GreatRange is currently in the design phase — working with fonts and imagery for both the website and larger brand. He said the next step will be to bring three options before the store’s board members.

“We go from three, down to one, then we fine tune that one,” Haney said.