Unique, one-of-a-kind flag store World Flags Direct is officially open in the downtown Dawsonville area, offering community members a way to purchase flags representing over 200 different countries in a wide variety of sizes and types. 

World Flags Direct has been around for several years, when owner Dave Blount first started the business in his basement in 1999. 

“Originally we sold maps, and to go with the European maps we bought flags to sell with them, and then it turned out that the flags sold better than the maps,” Blount said. 

Blount opened a storefront off of Highway 53 just before the tragic events of Sept. 11, 2001. He said that, with internet retail growing, his business quickly grew online more quickly than in person. 

“Our online presence became way bigger than the retail, so we’ve been in the online part of it since about 2002,” Blount said. 

Blount operated his business out of an industrial park off of Highway 400 for 15 years before he purchased a 7,000 square foot building off of Highway 9 North about five years ago, and since then World Flags Direct has been packing and shipping its wares all over the world from there. 

"The house that I bought to run the business out of I bought about five years ago just for the business; it’s not a retail business so we don’t even have a sign out front,” Blount said. “I did the figures last year and 98.8 percent of our sales were outside the state of Georgia. We decided in the last few months that we’ve got good products, we’ve got good prices and we’ve sold a whole lot of stuff out of state, so why don’t we try to sell something in Georgia.” 

And so Blount said he made a decision to open a storefront in the downtown Dawsonville area, and he opened at 23 Highway 9 North, on Feb. 16 of this year. 

“It’ll take us awhile in Dawsonville, but I guarantee there’s not another business like this around so if we can get the word spread around that we’re here and people see the prices and that we have a darn good selection, we’ll build this over time and use this to expand off the internet,” Blount said. 

World Flags Direct carries flags representing 220 different countries from all over the world. The business offers a wide variety of each of these flags, including country flag patches, lapel pins, miniature flags and toothpick flags. 

“We stock flags all the way from toothpick flags up to and including 30 feet by 60 feet; that’s 1,800 square feet and this whole building is 1850 so you could lay the flag on top of it,” Blount said. “We only keep about the top 100 countries here and the rest of them at our other location, but if somebody walks in and wants a really off-the-wall one we can have it back here at the store by this afternoon or tomorrow; we’re only two and a half miles away.” 

One big perk of offering a storefront for customers, Blount said, is that he is able to offer his flags for cheaper without having to add shipping costs and online fees. 

“Because of the price increases in shipping and the fees that companies like Amazon charge, that means that here I’m not paying that fee to Amazon and I’m not paying that shipping fee so I can sell to the customers cheaper than they can buy anything and they can pick it up here,” Blount said. “And we’re working on a part on our website where people can order online and pick it up the next day here.” 

Some of their best-selling items, he added, are the pole kits that many people display on their front porches, as well as 3 foot by 5 foot replacement flags for these poles. 

“We have those pole kits you see on people’s houses on sale here for the next couple months; that’s one of our best-selling items,” Blount said. “And we’ve got hundreds of the standard 3 by 5 replacement flags — we’re at least $10 under Amazon.” 

World Flags Direct is open in downtown Dawsonville from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays, and from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturdays. 

“It’s a year-round season in flags and this is the slowest part of the year; as the season picks up we’ll either expand our days or stick to Thursday, Friday and Saturday,” Blount added. 

For more information about World Flags Direct or to view the products that the business offers, go to worldflagsdirect.com.