About Us

Welcome to Our Corner ♡

What started as an excuse to go to conventions became something bigger than we ever imagined.

Cordy’s Corner started in 2012 with a love for anime, cosplay, conventions, and everything that comes along with being part of a fandom.

At the time, owner Shona was working full-time in a completely different field, while one of her kids was completely obsessed with anime and cosplay and wanted any excuse possible to dress up and go to conventions.

So Shona had an idea:

What if we started a business that gave us an excuse to go to conventions, have fun, and maybe make a little money while we were there?

And just like that, Cordy’s Corner began.

So... Who Is Cordy?

If you're a Buffy or Angel fan, you might already have a pretty good guess.

The name Cordy’s Corner was inspired by Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spin-off Angel. One of our favorite characters, Cordelia Chase, is affectionately known as “Cordy.”

We wanted a name that felt like a little place of our own, our corner of the fandom world.

More than a decade later, it fits us better than we ever could have expected.

From Convention Booth to Full-Time Business

In the beginning, Cordy’s Corner was truly a family operation.

For a long time, it was just Shona and her two kids, packing up merchandise, traveling to conventions, setting up booths, meeting fellow fans, and figuring everything out as they went.

There wasn't some big master plan to turn Cordy’s Corner into a full-time company. We were doing something we loved, meeting great people, and seeing where it took us.

Then, little by little, it grew.

The side business became a bigger business. The convention schedule got busier. The inventory got larger. There were more orders to fill, more places to travel, and a whole lot more boxes to pack.

Eventually, Cordy’s Corner grew enough that Shona was able to leave her previous career behind and make this her full-time job.

Then 2020 Changed Everything

For most of our early years, conventions weren't just part of Cordy’s Corner, they basically were Cordy’s Corner.

We traveled, set up our booth, sold in person, packed everything back up, and headed to the next show.

We didn't even have much of an online store.

Then COVID hit, conventions were canceled, and suddenly the way we had built our entire business disappeared.

Like so many other small businesses, we had to figure out what came next.

So we turned our attention online.

What started as a way to keep Cordy’s Corner going while we couldn't travel eventually became a huge part of who we are today.

Now we're lucky enough to have a little bit of both worlds: we can travel around the country doing the conventions we still love while also coming home to our warehouse and shipping orders to customers all over the United States.

Still Small. Still Family.

Cordy’s Corner has grown a lot since 2012 but we're still a very small business.

Today, our team is made up of Shona, her two kids, and three very close family friends.

That's it. That's us!

And when you're part of a small business, job descriptions tend to get a little... flexible.

Over the years, every one of us has learned to do things we never expected. We've become artists, buyers, salespeople, warehouse workers, convention exhibitors, photographers, designers, customer service representatives, website builders, order packers, problem solvers and whatever else the day happens to require.

There's no enormous corporation hiding behind the website.

When you order from Cordy’s Corner, you're supporting a small team of people who have spent years building this business together.

Fans First, Retailers Second

One thing that has never changed is that we actually love this stuff too.

We're fans of the movies, shows, characters, artists, and fandoms represented throughout our store.

The products we carry aren't selected by some distant buying department following a spreadsheet. They're chosen by us.

Sometimes it's because we think something is beautiful. Sometimes it's because a design makes us laugh. Sometimes it's because someone on the team is obsessed with the character.

And sometimes it's simply:

“Oh my gosh, we HAVE to get this.”

We know how exciting it is to find merchandise from something you love, especially when it's a character, fandom, or design you don't see everywhere else.

That's one of our favorite parts of doing this.

Finding the Things You Don't See Everywhere

Over the years, we've been incredibly fortunate to bring some pretty special products to our customers.

We've released more than 50 Cordy’s Corner Exclusive Loungefly bags and wallets, including designs that sold out almost immediately.

We're also proud to bring Vendula London to the convention world, offering convention shoppers the chance to discover their incredibly detailed bags and accessories in person.

And because we're a team of artists ourselves, we don't only want to find cool things, we love creating them too.

Our creative backgrounds give us the opportunity to develop our own designs and merchandise, turning some of the things we love into products we hope other fans will love just as much.

Our Favorite Part? You.

As much as Cordy’s Corner has changed over the years, one of our favorite parts of this business is exactly the same as it was when we started:

Meeting other fans.

There's something special about watching someone walk into our booth and suddenly spot the thing.

The character they never find merchandise for.

The bag they've been searching everywhere for.

The fandom they didn't expect anyone else at the convention to know.

Getting to watch someone light up over something on our shelves never really gets old.

But even more than that, we love the conversations.

We love hearing about your favorite characters. We love seeing your cosplay. We love joking around at the booth, hearing your stories, recognizing familiar faces from previous conventions, and meeting people who eventually start to feel more like friends than customers.

Those little interactions are a huge part of why we've kept doing this for all these years.

A Little Business With a Lot of History

It's funny to think that all of this started because one kid really wanted to cosplay and go to conventions.

More than a decade later, we've traveled countless miles, set up more convention booths than we could possibly count, packed a whole lot of orders, created our own merchandise, released dozens of exclusives, met thousands of amazing people, and built a business that none of us could have imagined back in 2012.

We've grown.

We've changed.

We've learned a lot.

But at the heart of Cordy’s Corner, we're still the same small group of people getting excited about cool things and wanting to share them with other people who will get just as excited.

So whether you found us at a convention, discovered us online, or have been shopping with us for years...

Welcome to our corner. We're really glad you're here. ♡

— The Cordy’s Corner Family