We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Tiffany Skoyen a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Tiffany , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?
It was during the pandemic when I think a lot of people were coming face to face with what it was like to really live with themselves 24/7. We have always been outdoorsy and considered ourselves good stewards of the environment, recycling, reusing, choosing natural products etc… but when faced with how much trash we actually produce we knew there had to be a better way. It is staggering how much waste we produce, the avg person tosses 5 lbs away, with about 1.5 lbs getting recycled. That is almost 1 ton of trash a year, multiply that by 4.8 mil people in the valley, and that is ALOT of trash!
My husband stumbled upon a Refillery in LA and he was like, “We should do this!”, but after looking around the valley we realized we couldn’t, there wasn’t anything available. So we set out to open one.
A Refillery is a Zero Waste Store that offers natural cleaning and personal care products (sometimes more/less) in bulk. Instead of throwing away your bottle of hand soap when it is empty, you wash and dry it, and then bring it in to be refilled. This is done by weight not volume, your container gets weighed empty, you refill with your product of choice, then weigh your container again and subtract the weight of the container so you only pay for the product inside. This is called TARE.
At our Refillery we offer reusable glass bottles for sale and we have a donated section of sanitized bottles for free. Non-plastic bottles cost more, but save you and the environment in the long run. We suggest refilling fast movers, like hand and dish soap, in larger vessels you will keep under the sink so you can refill your containers and have some time to get to the store before you run out. No one wants to run out of hand/dish soap!
In addition to being a resource to help slow the plastic waste problem, we are also on a mission to make non-toxic living easy and beautiful. We scour ingredients and test tirelessly to make sure every product we bring in is the best for your home and the waterways, sourced ethically, and the manufacturers use practices we support. Our suppliers provide product in the least amount of waste possible and most will take their containers back to sanitize and reuse again! If they don’t we are careful to purchase what we can repurpose and reuse ourselves. It is called closed-loop and it is the process of reusing resources until the end of their life cycle, vs tossing out of convenience.
Finally, we believe that sustainability starts at home, over 50% of our shop is sourced from Arizona and that number is growing. We need to support the community that supports us. We highlight local artists and makers and have even worked with a local eco-friendly candle maker and now have candle refills! Our soap makers are local, and after working with us they changed their packaging to be plastic free, seems small but it contributes to a large win overall.
Plastic waste is a bigger problem than the individual consumer can solve alone, but together we can make waves and get ecofriendly packaging on demand. Plastic is cheap, if we keep asking for cheap we will keep getting what cheap gets, if we start demanding quality we will get more quality and that equals buying less often, less health issues, less damage to the environment, all while not sacrificing on products that work.
Can you talk to us about how your side-hustle turned into something more.
We started Desert Refillery in 2021 during the middle of the pandemic, while we were enjoying working from home and having more time to dream. We dreamed ourselves up a side hustle and grew it into a full time business. It all started as we came face to face with ourselves during lockdown. What do we do all day when we cannot go out? How much waste do we produce, wasting time, wasting resources, and yes of course, how much trash. My husband saw a refillery on social media and we thought it was such a cool idea, and we were bummed there wasn’t anyone in the area that offered these services. He said “We should open one” and I immediately said “YES!”
It started out as a hustle, and it is still a hustle but a bigger more time consuming hustle.
We started with the idea of a mobile refillery, built out a van and got ourselves customers. Our first day of business was late May 2021 and it was HOT! We knew immediately that it was too hot to have a mobile refillery in Phoenix. Day 1, Pivot #1.
We transitioned to farmers markets, and this was a steady growth opportunity for us. We could manage it on the weekends when we were not working our day jobs, and we could handle the load that it required. We grew. We got into a couple high traffic markets and we saw that there was a market ready for us and that we needed to have a place our customers could go. We needed to be more convenient. We needed to have a bigger selection. We needed to take a risk. It was the scariest risk we have taken so far, signing a lease, committing to 5 years in one location with everyone telling us “retail is dead”. We took a risk that there were enough like minded people in the community who were ready for us, and wanted to support a local business making zero waste easy and accessible. We went all in and the community didn’t disappoint. Investing in a robust inventory, running the business ourselves to save money, being authentically ourselves, being willing to fail and learn and grow has allowed us to continue to scale. We now have a team of 6, we have partnerships around the valley, we have our own in-house brand, and it’s a daily evolution for all of us.
As we look to our future we are still young and have a long way to go. Operations is a focus, logistics, wholesale, management, website everything… but we are open to learn and enjoying the process. Back in my corporate days a key leader said “Fail fast, Fail forward” and I always loved that saying. We might as well have that tattooed on our hands! We have failed so many times in the past 2 years, but we keep failing forward. When we fail we don’t beat ourselves up, but rather ask ourselves, what can we learn from this? Where can we do better? And we do better.
Key Milestones:
1) Just do it – getting started. If you ever want to grow something, you have to be brave enough to take it from an idea to a real thing. It is scary but what is the worst that can happen? You fail? Is that the end of the world?
2) proof of concept – can you start small and prove to yourself that if you take that leap, if you invest fully, that it won’t fail. We did this by starting as a mobile refillery (and failing day 1) but then pivoting to farmers markets (this was a success – a slow at first but ever growing success). Then we got into our first shop, and we didnt even know other businesses would want us in their shops…
3) Take the risk – what will get you from side hustle to dream life? How can you make that happen? What is stopping you? For us this was a brick and mortar store when everyone told us not to do it. We are beyond grateful we didn’t listen. You know what is right for your dream. It is ok to ask for advice, but take it with a grain of salt, no one knows what you are building but you.
4) Round it out – for us this was adding in a wholesale component and engaging other business owners to have refill hubs that make refilling more accessible around the valley. We are big on collaboration and growing the mission as a whole. It has been so fun to watch refilleries grow and communities come together to support a better tomorrow.
5) Keep growing – the world is moving so fast and we need to adapt to it. We learn everyday, from our vendors, from our experiences, and most importantly from our customers. It is not about being perfect, if it was I don’t think we would be successful. It is about trying everyday. Doing one thing to be better.
How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
Consistency. Authenticity.
Transparency.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.desertrefillery.com
- Instagram: @desertrefillery
- Facebook: desert refillery