As Minnesotans continue to rally their support behind Ukraine, one industry is working hard to keep up: flag stores.
Rose Clement opened The Flag Store in Sauk Rapids three years ago. Since then, she's sold hundreds of USA, Minnesota and other custom flags. But the hottest item on the shelves now are Ukrainian flags. Clement has had calls coming in every day since Russia’s invasion, asking if they have Ukraine flags in stock. They’ve come from a variety of people from all walks of life: former Ukraine residents, Minnesotans with familial ties to the country and many concerned American citizens who want to show their support and solidarity.
“The interest has been very high,” Clement said. I was bummed I didn’t get the flags ordered sooner. I had a lot of phone calls and people were like ‘oh I want it right now’ and it’s like, OK well unfortunately that’s not a flag that anybody is going to stock on a regular basis.”
And there lies the struggle. Clement and other Minnesota flag stores have been scrambling to up their stock of the flag that was hardly ever requested in the past. Clement was one of the lucky ones, receiving a shipment just two days after making an order that was expected to take multiple weeks. She’ll likely need to put in another order soon. Other flag stores contacted by WCCO said they are working off a 2-3 week backlog. Twin Cities Flag Source, located in Anoka, has even started to hand make them to meet demand.
“It’s not something my vendors, they didn’t even heavily stock it,” said Clement, adding the most popular international flags are Germany, France and Italy. “I’m sure even for the vendors, when they were making them, they didn’t have a stockpile of them. They got backlogged very quickly.
Clement says the interest in Ukrainian flags, bumper stickers, and other merchandise has been larger than any other international country since she opened her shop.