After half a century in business, Sheilagh Robertson is looking for the right person to buy her luggage store.

“I am looking to retire in the near future,” the founder of The Harbourmaster told The Royal Gazette.

She wants the Washington Mall store, which sells luggage, handbags and backpacks, to carry on.

“It needs somebody who is going to be a hands-on person,” she said. “As it stands now, I do everything including the accounting, the buying, unpacking boxes and selling.”

She had two employees, but one has just retired.

“I am in the process of hiring someone else to replace her,” she said. “We are at a transition point.”

Ms Robertson said it was rare for a small business in Bermuda to last so long with the same owner.

“There are older businesses, but most of them have changed hands several times over the years,” she said. “One of the stores across from us is on its third or fourth owner.”

In a previous article, Ms Robertson told The Royal Gazette that Covid-19 was one of the most difficult business climates she had experienced since opening.

“It is better now, but also different.”

However, she said the pandemic forced her into the modern age.

“I am a little old-fashioned and like working with a physical thing,” she said. “I like marking pages and flipping back and forth, as opposed to click, click, click. Covid-19 forced people like me to adapt, kicking and screaming, to a new way of thinking and doing things. We were using online for everything.”

She studied bacteriology and immunology at university in Canada. She got the idea for The Harbourmaster from a store in London, Ontario, near to where she studied.

“It was very similar to what The Harbourmaster is today,” she said.

Land, the leather-goods brand, has been one of her key suppliers, almost from the beginning.

She has seen many changes in the luggage and leather-goods industries since she opened.

For example, in the 1970s places such as Frankfurt, Germany, the state of Massachusetts and the Midlands in England were well known for making the items she sells. Production has now moved to China.

Ms Robertson said it is still too early to tell how US president Donald Trump’s tariffs on imports will impact her business.

“It is all still up in the air,” she said.

Her secret to success was finding the right niche at the right time.

“When I opened, in March 1975, I found a gap in the market that was not being served,” she said. “The island was very different then. There were a lot more hotels and tourists. Things were booming.”

The Washington Mall itself was brand new when she first hung her shingle.

“At that time, there were very few locations for new small businesses to start,” she said. “You had Church Street with all the established stores, most of whom no longer exist. There was Reid Street. Front Street was heavily tourist-oriented with lots of woollens and china, and things like that.”

Ms Robertson said the Washington Mall offered a place for smaller businesses to get their foot in the door.

“After that, it was really a question of hard work,” she said. “You have to be very focused in what you do. I decided early on that I was going to focus on leather goods, luggage and things closely related to those two things.”

She advised people just opening a brick and mortar store to crunch the numbers.

“If you are going to rent a space, you have to figure out what the basics are that you need to cover, such as rent and utilities,” she said. “How much do you need to sell each month to cover the basics? What happens if you get sick?”

To celebrate 50 years, every purchase made at The Harbourmaster between now and June 13 enters the client into a grand-prize draw.

Ms Robertson is also asking people to send in a picture and short story about a meaningful purchase they made at the store.