Discount store tradition continues

Mary Paramore
HBL Associate Editor
2/05/10

Keith Silberg has opened The Big Tarp Company Store in the old C-Mart building in Forest Hill. The son and nephew of C-Mart’s original owners, Silberg promises consumers current, name brand merchandise for significant savings. In stock for his grand opening Feb. 3 were $30,000 worth of Vera Bradley handbags, which he sold for 50 percent off retail prices.

Savings-savvy shoppers going through big name brand withdrawal since C-Mart closed can rest easy. The regionally famous discount store reopened Feb. 3 in the old C-Mart location, 1503-11 Rock Spring Road, Forest Hill, under a new name, The Big Tarp Company Store.

The new enterprise is the work of Keith Silberg, son and nephew of C-Mart’s original owners/operators. What started as dabbling turned into a career for Silberg, a calling that continues a family tradition of retail that goes back to his grandparent’s store on Bond Street in Bel Air, which operated during the 1970s.

The Big Tarp Company Store, like its predecessor C-Mart, is not a close-out retailer. Through long-standing connections, Silberg said, “We have the opportunity to buy current goods, exactly what’s in the stores now, and sell it for 50, 60, 70 percent off.”
Those names include Vera Brandley, Brighton, Ralph Lauren, Kenneth Cole, DKNY, Oilily, Bobby Jones, Carmen Marc Valvo, Indigo Palms, and more. He said, “C-mart was known for its high end clothes and handbags. We’re like a full department store, and we’ll always have furniture and ladies shoes, but you also don’t know what we’ll end up having on top of that.”
Silberg buys insurance losses. For instance, his grand opening featured books, games, toys and software currently sold by Barnes & Noble. He was able to offer the same merchandise because one of the company’s trucks caught on fire, damaging about 10 percent of the trailer’s contents. All of the merchandise was written off as a loss, however.

“We have a personal relationship with insurance salvage companies and wholesalers. This is a business of opportunity. You have to be prepared to decide, act and pay quickly,” Silberg said.

When C-Mart was sold in 2007, the Carton and Silberg families retained ownership of the building, even though they lost rights to the C-Mart name when new owners gave the business a go. That enterprise failed in mid-2008, but the family kept getting calls from insurance salvage companies and wholesalers about great deals.

Silberg first took advantage of the phone calls by opening a flea market in the then-closed C-Mart building in November 2008. He offered some C-Mart-like deals in his space, while his tenants offered traditional flea market wares.

The deals kept coming, and as flea market vendors closed, Silberg took over their spaces for his operations. Then, he decided to dabble in auctions, opening Big Tarp Absolute Auctions in February 2009.

Big Tarp Absolute Auctions take place every other Wednesday, in space at the back of the original C-mart building. In August 2009, Silberg purchased Isennock Auction Services, Inc., which specializes in estate sales.

He decided not to go to law school and stick with the family ‘s business tradition, noting, “The auction became a career for me. I love finding the deals and the selling.”

Isennock auctions are advertised in print and on Silberg’s Web site, www.thebigtarp.com. At the site, visitors can find images of every item offered for sale in auctions conducted by both companies as well as information about deals being offered in The Big Tarp Company Store.
The three Silberg ventures are now connected within the C-Mart complex because Silberg cut a door between the auction house in back and the Big Tarp Flea Market and Company Store in front.

The Big Tarp Company Store is open five days each week, Wednesday-Friday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m., and Saturday-Sunday 8 a.m.-4 p.m. Silberg said The Big Tarp Company Store will stay open for after-auction crowds.