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Onile didn’t intend to open her business inside an apartment, but was forced to get creative when she looked at the high costs of urban retail real estate. Fortunately, Toronto’s condo housing boom afforded her a natural downtown space to carry the retail goods sold by her design company, 800 Sq. Ft., when she was looking for a space to showcase the goods sold on her website.

“I wanted to open up a furniture shop and I knew it had to be in the middle of the city,” said Onile, whose firm specializes in design for small spaces like condominiums. “This was the solution for that.”

The Apt. by 800 Sq. Ft. operates by appointment only, and hosts three to four shopping parties a month for customers to browse and buy items such as the groovy Renwil pendant light ($650) or a $49 Pamuk & Co. Turkish cotton towel. Because shopping is done only after making an appointment at 800SqFt.com, Onile does not have to operate her 500-square-foot business within a zoned retail space.

“It’s like running a photography studio out of your home, where you do it by appointment and clients come to see you.”

Onile agrees that consumers who come to stores laden with research gleaned from the Internet before shopping are looking for something other than a traditional retail store.

“I like this to be an experience beyond it just being a shop,” she said. “I want people to have a different kind of shopping experience from the one that they have when they walk in a regular shop and pick something up.”