We were lucky to catch up with Marissa Berghorst recently and have shared our conversation below.

Marissa, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

I didn’t mean to own a store. I originally went to school to work in the medical field, and before I had kids, I was a brain injury specialist at a local hospital. Then, when I had kids I thought I was going to be a stay-at-home mom forever. When I was pregnant with our second child, my then-husband asked for a divorce. In 2012 found myself a single mom of two kids under the age of 2 during a recession when health care was on a hiring freeze. At the same time, my mom was selling a previous business. With both of us going through life changes, we decided to go into business together. Originally, we were going to go into manufacturing of cloth diapers. We started our own line of cloth diapers and sold them at vendor shows and local stores in West Michigan. But a few months into manufacturing, we realized that we wanted to focus our energy on the people side of the business and connecting with our community, so in early 2013, we purchased an existing business – Ecobuns Natural Parenting and Baby Boutique. At the time, Ecobuns only offered cloth diapers. When we became owners, we expanded the product line, changed the name slightly (Ecobuns Baby + Co.), and began to expand local resources such as moms groups and classes. Over the years, we’ve also grown to carry eco-friendly toys, and now have a few rooms of our store devoted to toys and games that don’t take batteries.

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

Ecobuns Baby + Co is an eco-friendly toy store and baby boutique. Originally, Ecobuns was an online-only retailer in the original owner’s living room. Today, while cloth diapers are still available, you can now find more toys and games for babies, pre-teens, and everyone in-between. One of the things that I am most excited about with our store is our community. Being a new mom can be so lonely. I love that at Ecobuns, moms can bring their kids in to shop without fear of judgment. We have toy areas where kids can play and test out toys while moms shop. We often get in moms who meet up with their friends at the store to hang out while shopping. The other thing that stands out about our store is our commitment to quality. We source items that are ethically and sustainably made. We look for items made as local to Michigan as possible first. After that, we look for companies that align with our business values. For example, a line of building toys that we carry are manufactured in a factory in Denmark that is 100% wind energy powered.

Let’s move on to buying businesses – can you talk to us about your experience with business acquisitions?

Buying the business was a bit of a whirlwind. When we first started negotiations, it was clear the seller’s terms weren’t aligning with what we could do, so we walked away from the deal. Five months later as we were in the process of starting a business from scratch, the seller reached out to us letting us know that she was ready to sell at the terms we presented at the original negotiation. I’m glad that we knew what our limitations were and didn’t try to stretch ourselves too thin. And while 5 months felt like forever and like the doors were closed on the opportunity, in the grand scheme of things it wasn’t that long of a time. It was worth it to have patience and wait for the right time to acquire a business for the right terms.

Alright – let’s talk about marketing or sales – do you have any fun stories about a risk you’ve taken or something else exciting on the sales and marketing side?

We are the third owners of our store. The second owner (the one we purchased from) had treated the store more like a hobby than a business and the store had gotten a reputation for not having much in stock. It was a 1,500 square foot retail space with less than $5000 in inventory. The space looked like an empty hallway. One of the first things we did was to pick a brand and commit to never being out of stock of it. We also changed the hours of the store to be consistent on all days and to match the big box stores that neighbored our store. And then we hit the ground running…literally. I went to every moms group, every networking event, and started posting in every facebook group I could find. We had a lot of work to turn the brand’s reputation around. I brought my two kids to work with me daily, often wearing my baby in a baby carrier while my toddler played with demo toys at the store, thus accidentally creating the first customer play area. In the early days most of our business came from special orders. We didn’t have the inventory in the store to sell, so customers would order from us and pick up when the products came in. The first time someone came in and purchased everything they needed for their new baby and was able to walk out of the store with everything she had purchased was a big cause for celebration for us.

But my favorite marketing strategy will always be the birthday party we hold for the store every February. When we took over the store, we set a goal of being open for 2 years. When we hit the one year mark, we held a party to celebrate. We weren’t sure how many people would come out to celebrate being as is it was in the dead of winter in Michigan. But we had customers travel from over 2 hours away to join us! Every year the event has grown and grown. We do swag bags fro the first 50 shoppers filled with full sized products donated from brands we carry at Ecobuns. For our 10th party, the first person got in line for the party at 10pm the night before!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.ecobuns.com
• Instagram: @ecobunsbabyco
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ecobuns
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ecobunsholland
• Other: Photo credit: @missyalisonphotography

Image Credits
@missyalisonphotography