Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Livie Olsen. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Livie, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

I can’t really take credit for the idea of A Thrifty Notion. It seems as though it’s a shop that wants to exist and it chose me to bring it into reality. I was running a “normal” quilt shop with a bit more focus on modern designs and organic fabrics, but still pretty mainstream. I LOVE making quilts, but it was expensive and I didn’t really need the quilts I was making. I had tried to give up quilting, but was unable to stop, so I thought starting a shop would help support my habit and let me do what I love for a living. I truly was enjoying it, but deep down I felt conflicted. I felt I was helping to feed into needless consumerism and waste, but I wasn’t sure what to do about it. People did love the shop. I got appreciative feedback from people specifically looking for more modern designs and organic options, so I felt like I was at least filling a niche. One random day a person stopped by and asked whether we wanted their truckload of grandma’s “sewing stuff” before they took it to the landfill. I’m frugal by nature – I hate to see good items go to waste, so I told them we’d take it all.
I went through and took what I wanted for my personal stash and the rest was put on a table in a corner of the store as a bit of a de-stash rummage sale. People loved it! Almost every customer started asking whether we would take donations and I just started saying “YES!”
Before long, the secondhand items had taken over half of the store space and every bit of extra storage space in my home was full. My staff and I started a second business called A Thrifty Notion and we started marketing our secondhand sewing shop online. This thing REALLY wanted to exist! As Thrifty grew, I was struggling to run two businesses and the deep seated conflict I felt about the quilt shop was building as I saw piles of unused quilting fabric coming in as donations. More and more of our time was being taken up with A Thrifty Notion and all of our motivation and inspiration seemed to be coming from that shop. I decided to end the quilt shop and focus all of the energy on Thrifty. I haven’t regretted that choice and I no longer feel conflicted about the business I’m running.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I’ve always been strongly inspired by creating useful and beautiful things from found or discarded materials. When I was a kid, I saved used dryer sheets and sewed them together into chains that I draped around my bed in a wispy canopy. My mom taught me to make beautiful braided rugs from old wool clothing that had been damaged by moths. I found endless entertainment in books that described how to make puppets from socks or cute storage bins from recycled milk containers. The idea of adding creativity to trash and making treasure has always excited me. Sustainability is also one of my core values. Needless waste and consumption kind of just piss me off. Textile waste is one of the largest contributors to global pollution and I happen to be a human who’s wired to love textiles, so applying that love to saving and re-homing fabric and sewing supplies is a perfect fit.
If you are a thrifty person, you will always be able to find these items yourself at a lower cost. However, when and where you find a treasure is up to the thrift gods. What we provide is the ability to shop online for specific items that have already been sourced and sorted. We also provide a place where overwhelmed families and businesses can unload these items all at once without the burden of sorting and selling it themselves or the guilt of just taking it to the landfill. We make every effort to be respectful of the investment and memories tied up in these fabric stashes and we do our best to find every last bit a new home.

Do you sell on your site, or do you use a platform like Amazon, Etsy, Cratejoy, etc?

I started our shop on Etsy which was working well for us as far as traffic and sales, but I realized we were losing almost 20% of our revenue after all of the fees. I began to research how to leave Etsy and start my own website. I learned that when you host on Etsy, they have ownership of your site and customer list. If they decide to shut you down for any reason, you’re at the mercy of their corporate maze. It took a bit of courage and a lot of research, but I decided to get my own domain and host it on Shopify. That meant upping our Instagram engagement and learning even more about SEO and email marketing so we could improve effectiveness. The upside was a much lower cost for our storefront and ownership of the domain and customer lists. If I were to ever decide to sell the business, those assets are vital.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

I think our honesty and integrity have been key. I don’t purposely try to emphasize those things, but we often get comments from people saying they appreciate our transparency and that we seem to be truly following through on what we claim to be. That’s a big deal in the sustainability space. Greenwashing is pretty rampant. Obviously no one is perfect, but we make every effort to treat people fairly and admit when we’ve made mistakes. That sometimes means taking a hit financially in order to make things right, but it’s absolutely worth it.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.athriftynotion.com
• Instagram: @athriftynotion
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AThriftyNotion
• Youtube: @AThriftyNotion

Image Credits
Marcea Lena Photo Co.