I want to open Elk Grove's FIRST refillery by the end of this yearI've allowed myself to be pulled in so many directions since starting this business 6 years ago. Originally the vision was a small sustainable gifts and toys install in a corner of another shop (anyone remember the wonderful "Gifts from the Heart" in Old Town Elk Grove?) When that shop closed, I looked at doing pop ups on my own. My first was at the Spring Fair at my daughter's school, I couldn't even sell yet, I just had on display the type of products I wanted to carry and had great conversations with families about low-waste living. I was working part time as a contract employee for a EV charging company and would work out of a local co-working space. One day while explaining my concept to a friend there, they suggested I check out Refill Madness in midtown. I approached them about running deliveries for their business, but they weren't interested. I decided to just stick to doing pop ups in Elk Grove, I got into the new Thursday night Farmers market at Dist 56. I started traveling the country to meet eco-shop owners and manufactures of really neat sustainable products. A shop in the Bay Area told me about a liquid soap vendor in Oakland that I should check out. Not only did I fall in love with their product, but also their closed-loop delivery and container return operation and I wanted to help them grow fast. A different liquid soap brand that had been a staple in most refill shops in the late 20-teens had recently sold to a large conglomerate and was ending their relationship with refill shops. I helped this new brand out of Oakland sell to shops in Washington, Oregon, New Mexico and California. They had me doing deliveries to the neighboring states while they did their Northern California deliveries themselves. I worked as a brand rep and earned a commission. But the problem with that was there was not a set schedule for me to get paid those commissions and the company constantly pushed me off, saying I just needed to wait until they got their next round of funding. After 3 years of waiting, I cut ties with them, at a great financial loss. I took a year to try to get reorganized and spend time with my family after being on the road for most of the last three years. I found a new liquid soap manufacturer out of Missouri that many refill shops liked, but that shipping costs kept most of them from being able to bring on their products. I slowly started working with local shops to work collectively to bring out this product in a way that minimized the shipping impact. This operation has grown over the last two years and I now work with 15 shops regularly. But this service I provide has never really been profitable, because the focus has been to keep the overhead low for the shops. Two years ago, I also started to reopen my local retail operations, going to the occassional makers market and participating in regular pop-ups at A Seat as the Table bookstore and cafe. Since cutting ties with the soap manufacturer in Oakland, my business debt has been creeping up and I've accumulated a large assortment of products from various sources. Sometimes a new vendor I want to support, sometimes another shop that is closing and sometimes I make products myself as I see a need for a locally made option. Up until now, I have not done much for marketing locally. I find most marketing to be very hit-or-miss. Many times an expensive or time consuming marketing campaign results in no sales. I've mostly stuck in my B2B sales bubble, as it's easier to sell to shops, they always reach out when they are getting low on product. I find new shops by checking my vendor's stockist maps or I'm introduced to new shops by existing clients. Today is the day EVERYTHING changesThe interest accumulated from the business debt and the other costs associated with my business have forced me to decided: Do I really want to building and launch Elk Grove's FIRST refillery? It's been my dream for 6 years, I was always just too scared to make the leap. I have to ultimately decide by the end of April: Do I dissolve my business, cash my retirement savings to clear out my debts and get a full time job to just start my career over and support my family? Or do I start hustling, growing my business, reaching new customers, and build this into something glorious? Is it better to go down swinging? So this is it, I'm going to give the next 35 days my best effort. I'm setting a goal of $38,000 in sales. If I can reach that by April 30th, then I will have what I need to start fresh and use the immense knowledge I've accumulated about the low-waste living industry to build and launch Elk Grove's first refillery. I know the number seems high, but in the current rental and retail costs environment, this is actually the minimum monthly sales that would be needed to operate a brick and mortar location. Will you help?I am going to add more products to my site weeky and I will be resuming pop ups every weekend at A Seat at the Table from April 13th, 20th and 27th. And most importantly, I am going to post... a lot. I need shares. I need more eyes on my business. I need sales to be able to justify continuing down this road. The clock starts now.
Reach out to me with questions or if you want to talk about ways you can help! Thank you for reading! - Stephanie
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So, after all that work to get the Kiva loan funded, my kiosk manufacturer has decided to close. I spent 5 weeks talking with another manufacturer, so very excited as they offered a lot more for opportunities. And now, I just found out that this second manufacturer is also choosing to close. I am very tempted to figure out how to build kiosks myself. In the meantime, I am focusing on slowly rebuilding my local presence and getting back into manufacturing some products of my own. I now have branded pre-fills of my core products in unscented varieties. Laundry, Dish, Hand and Body Wash. They will be added to the site and will be at future markets. I am developing a kind of manual kiosk for refilling these branded pre-fills. It's not as cool as the electronic kiosk, but should service pretty much the same function. Hopefully I will be able to announce its launch by the end of October. Still working toward a full scale refillery as well middle of next year. Thank you for your continued support!
-Stephanie Exciting things are happening. After many months of starts and stop, we were approved for another Kiva loan. We just recently moved from the private funding phase to the public funding phase and we are 40% of the way to being fully funded. This loan is earmarked for piloting a really neat self-serve soap dispensing kiosk we are hoping to place at A Seat at the Table Books. The pilot will allow us to gather data to determine if Elk Grove is ready for a fun scale refinery and whether we can expand the kiosks to more locations throughout the Sacramento region. We'll be starting with our "Core Four" products, unscented laundry detergent, dish soap, hand soap and body wash. To help us reach our goal, check out the Kiva Loan campaign- https://www.kiva.org/lend/2812463?emlid=6055575&share=true In other news, this pilot will be rolled out under a new company name, The Refill Network. We are working on re-designing and launching that website while also updating this one. And speaking of updates, we added a new product: Sappo Hill Soap Bars and two new designs of the Swedish Dishcloths. Go check them out in the Shop section.  Plastic Free July is a great time to start making sustainable swaps. Find a grocer near you that lets you bring your own jars to refill pantry staples like rice, beans, flours and sugars. Replace your ziplock bags with reusable silicone. Bring your own shopping bags to the store. Try out soap and shampoo bars instead of using plastic bottles of personal care products.
And just like that, we are back online and back to providing online sales with local delivery. Thank you to everyone for having such patience as we rebuilt the site and had some vendor changes. It's sure been a journey! We will be adding new products weekly, so check back often! But we will also be keeping a more minimal inventory this time around. Best to keep things simple! Let me know if there is a specific product you are looking for.  This business has taken so many forms, but the guiding principal has always been the same: Help consumers reduce waste.
The timeline so far: May 2019- I officially launched Green Gifts with plans to have it be a sustainable gift store. The main products were things that were up cycled from secondhand materials. July 2019- I receive my sales permit and am introduced to a local refill shop. I love their concept and want to work together to make their products more accessible. I also noted that many of their products are not closed loop (meaning the manufacturer does not take back their larger plastic container to reuse) Essentially just moving the plastic waste further up the line, but not eliminating it. This retailer told me they were not interested, so I searched for closed loop vendors myself and found many August 2019- I launch my e-commerce site and provide "milkman" style deliveries where I take back empty containers to be reused. I take and week long road trip to visit other refill shops and eco-retailers in Oregon and Washington and learn a lot from them. March 2020- Covid shuts the world down and I start providing next day delivery as I don't have anything else on my family's schedule. June 2020- My family and I take a long road trip we had rescheduled from March, I meet over a dozen new shops and pick up products from several vendors. I noticed many shops were hindered by high shipping for many products, forcing them to have to mark their prices above suggested retail to be able to keep their operations sustainable. July 2020- I start to participate in more local markets, but quickly find my little Chevy Bolt and Mitsubishi iMiEV (both full electric) are too small to fit all my product. I could also use a larger/longer range vehicle to transport product between west coast manufacturers and shops. I start researching a heartier EV. August 2020- I buy a 2016 Tesla Model X from a dealership in Salt Lake City and have it shipped over. September 2020- I take a crazy 40 hour road trip out to the midwest to pick up orders from vendors and visit shops. I also start attending the Thursday Night NeighborGood Farmers Market at District 56 every week. January 2021- I attend the market less frequently as there is often very little traffic. My consumer online sales have also dropped, but I see a pick uptick in shops requesting my help moving product. I am approached by a couple of my vendors to become an actual rep for them. I provide samples to shops and collect orders. I also rescue a large amount of inventory from a shop in AZ that is closing its doors. Summer 2021- I temporarily discontinue my direct to consumer sales when out of town on an extend summer road trip to meet new shops across the country. When I return, I decide to focus on brand repping and distributing for a few brands and do not reopen my direct to consumer site. Spring 2022- I am incredible busy running product from northern Washington, down to San Diego and out to Santa Fe New Mexico. But I hit a major snag when my biggest vendor refuses to pay out the agreed upon commissions for selling their product. I discovered a number of products that are lacking in the market and try my hand at producing them myself. Some are hits, others are flops, and between the materials, the equipment and the delayed payments from my vendor, I find myself very quickly racking up serious debt. January 2023- I officially decide I can no longer work with the aforementioned vendor and begin to pivot to find new ones. I also finally wake to the pleas of my family to not be on the road so often and I scale back my operations. Spring 2023- I find a couple new vendors I love and start coordinating with them to help them distribute their products more effectively on the West Coast. My wholesale orders slow as I run low on certain inventory and many shops move or close. A major transition in the industry is beginning. But very excitingly, I begin talking with the maker of a new technology that will make refillable goods much more accessible. Summer 2023- Another epic, month long road trip to visit new vendors and shops. But tragically, it is greatly disrupted by a car issue that left us without a working vehicle for over a week. Many meetings are cancelled and the trip ends up being less than half as productive as I had hoped. September 2023- New inventory is on its way and I am spending several sleepless nights reconstructing my website to welcome back local retail customers. I will be resuming the MilkMan style deliveries in October and will be introducing a standalone refill kiosk in Elk Grove before the end of the year. I'm going to wrap this here as my laptop is about to die and apparently this Starbucks does not have outlets available for guests. Many more updates coming soon! -With much love and respect- <3 --- Stephanie Summer BreakI am on the road for the summer. First I went down and dropped my elderly (14yo!) dog with my mom and on my way stopped by shops in Visalia, LA, Phoenix and Tucson. I then swung back up trough San Diego and LA again to head home to pick up my summer travel team (my fam). We are now touring around first through the Pacific Northwest and then turning East and heading to the Midwest. Why am I driving thousands of miles around the country? It is part to drop inventory with shops whom I already have a relationship with, and it's part to meet many new shop owners. I want to help shops with sourcing their most sustainable, local and closed loop products for their customers. I'm also hoping to help them overcome other hurdles such as funding and marketing. I find these face to face interactions the best way to kick off a business relationship. I get a sense of their shop, what's important to them, and they get to try samples and see products before committing to carry them. So much travel might be tiresome for some people, but I find it to be an adventure and my family loves to come along when they can. This is such a beautiful country, the landscapes and vistas are breathtaking and driving through is the best way to see them all in my opinion. I will be back in town end of July, but I'm keeping my retail operations on hold until the end of August as I restructure my business. I want to be sure I am serving all my clients to the best of my ability, both the other Zero Waste shops and the retail customers in my community. Exciting PossibilitiesSo, what will my biz look like in September? I am working to building a distribution/wholesale platform to help eco-conscious retailers to find those products that will best serve their customers and fit their ideals. I want to up-end some of the traditional retail model like high minimum orders, expensive and polluting shipping, non-close-loop packaging that must be disposed of by the consumer or retailer and a lot more. This is going to be a major undertaking, and will be the focus of my time. I do want to return to holding booths at markets, but they are going to focus on the products that I make that I believe are the best option in those categories and aren't available in other nearby shops. This will include my composting systems, my dryer balls made of local Climate Beneficial Transitional (TM) sheep's wool and my hand crocheted and knitted items made from natural local organic fiber. I am not planning to host a refill bar at the markets in the future. BUT.......... The Future of RetailI am working with a gentleman who has created some mind-blowing tech in the field of refill and hope in the-not-too-distant-future, to bring that tech to the Sacramento/Davis area. I don't have a solid timeline to share, I will keep you posted. If it all works out how I envision, it's going to be big, like BIG.
That's all for now, I will try to share some stories of my travels, but my days are so jammed pack I can't make promises! I just finished taking photos of 6 new products and I am about to launch them on the site. But I wanted to pause and get something out of my brain. I don't know if it is a good idea to open a physical shop in Elk Grove right now. I've had a lot of (verbal) support, but very few sales these last few months. It weighs on me when I am at the Thursday market, someone stops to browse, we get to talking and I mention how I want to open a physical space. They tell me "That would be great, I'll come shop with you all the time!" then walk away from my full stocked booth that has the same items a physical shop would have. I am very nervous at the prospect of taking out a loan, putting myself in tens of thousands of dollars in debt, and then having no one show up to the shop.
If you say you support small businesses, buy from me. If you want to be more sustainable, buy from me. If you enjoy the products I carry, tell your friends. If you want to see more shops like mine and have places to hang out, buy from me now so I know that I can invest in a place that will flourish and not be struggling everyday. I used examples of other small businesses that weren't completely different from what I want to create, that have closed in Elk Grove in the last 2 or so years. They couldn't compete with Amazon and Walmart anymore. They couldn't handle rising overhead costs and they just weren't seeing enough people coming in the door. Marketing is expensive and time consuming. Regulations and permitting and insurance is confusing, time sucking and expensive too. I tell myself that Elk Grove is not a good place for small businesses to thrive. But I really can't help but dream. I know of other shop owners who said they weren't really getting much traction until they opened their shop, then they were very busy and are already looking into opening second locations. I found a terrific shopping center that would be so perfect. The landlords seem genuinely great, and have been very generous with their terms. It's a good size and the first even remotely affordable thing I've found. I can't leap. I am frozen. I am terrified. I'm afraid I'm going to miss a terrific opportunity, but I am even more terrified I'm going to go out on a limb and have the tree struck by lightening. I have other ways I can support the industry. I love working with all the other Zero Waste/Refill shops out there and I have a dream of developing a distribution network that alleviates some of the current retailer headaches. I think I can actually do more with that idea to have a bigger impact on the global plastic pollution problem. But I want to have a local shop for my community. I have toyed with the idea of bringing on a partner, someone I can split the local presence with. I just don't know how to find that person. Anyway, I need to get back to work, allowing myself to be pulled 20 different directions at once is a part of my bigger issue right now. I just wanted to type and get these thoughts out. Comment or message me a on social media if you ever feel this horrible edge-of-a-precipice-should-I-jump feeling. Here are my (probably overly) ambitious plans for tomorrow and beyond.
This week I am organizing myself to be able to hopefully sign a lease on a physical retail space (fingers and toes crossed). The official opening will be in April. I need to do so much organizing of numbers and financials, not my strong suit. I also went down to Phoenix to purchase the left over inventory from a shop that was closing a couple weeks ago. I spent all of my cash-on-hand on it, so now I don't have the money I was originally planning to use toward the deposit and first month for the retail space. So now I am trying to see if I can make some decent sales this week so I don't have to dip into my family's savings (more than I already have). I'm extremely excited to take possession of the space, I'll probably spend every waking moment that I can there. Some of the other projects I am working on concurrently are: - I want to put together a weekly round up email for the Facebook group I run, Zero Waste, Zero Judgement. - I want to do a big Trade Show style event that helps introduce the dozens of retailers I have met to the hundreds of vendors and manufacturers. I think it would be a mind-blowing networking tool for hundreds of small business owners. It will also be a TON of work and I need to have some cash on hand to hire help. - I plan to put together a detailed and interactive directory and map of Refill Shops and other resources to help people reduce waste and live more sustainably. - I want to open a facility where I can clean and sanitize containers. I have hundreds of glass bottles and jars already and I know of a number of vendors right now that ship their products in aluminum bottles that they take back to clean, but the logistics and emissions of sending the bottles halfway across the country feel wasteful and costly. I would love to create a refill distribution center that could bring in the large drums of product from further away and then refill bottles or mid size containers to go out to local customers or stores. This facility would also be a hub for systems like GoBox which supplies restaurants with reusable take out containers. Customers subscribe to GoBox and then can "check out" the containers when they buy food from the participating restaurants. They can then return them to one of dozens of drop-off locations for them to be collected, cleaned and redistributed back tot he restaurants. - I want to create more content! I've been shying away from being on camera and I am not good about regularly sitting down to write. I will be changing this, and will put more content out so that I can share my project, connect with others and hopefully inspire some people to start their own sustainability focused journey. I need to get the car loaded up for tonight's market. I will write more soon, I promise. So, here's where I'm at: I've owned Green Gifts for about 18 months, running it mostly as a local delivery service with the occasional community market. During the fall last year, the NeighborGood Market started just a couple miles from me. It's a Farmers Market on Thursday nights. After the December holiday markets, they decided to bump it down to just once a month.
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