We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Paige Fix a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Paige, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today How did you come up with the idea for your business?

I have always been driven to make the world a better place and dreamed of doing something big to make that happen. I started Shelter Pawz while attending college pursuing a degree in Social Work and working at an animal shelter in youth programs. While working at the local animal shelter, I became incredibly passionate about finding ways to strengthen the bond between children and shelter pets. I noticed all the children’s stuffed animals were pretty much all the same few “designer” dog breeds. I thought about how impactful it would be to have stuffed animals that represent mixed breed, shelter dogs. So often these dogs are overlooked in the shelter and get a bad rap from the media. I wanted to change that! And what better way than an adorable plush toy to snuggle, love, and learn from? All of our stuffed animals are mixed breeds and were inspired by real dogs who I met during my time at the animal shelter. To increase our impact, 10% of profits are donated to animal shelters to support their lifesaving work!

The purpose of this business is simple: bringing shelter animals and children together through love. By engaging children at a young age with shelter animals, my hope is the more likely they grow up to make a difference in the lives of animals in need.

Paige, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I couldn’t be more excited to introduce to you, Shelter Pawz, my mission-driven small business. My name is Paige, and I am the owner and founder.

Shelter Pawz advocates for animals differently by offering shelter-dog inspired plush toys. All our stuffed animals are mixed breed and inspired from real shelter dogs I met during my time working at an animal shelter. Too often, the media portrays mixed breed dogs in negative ways, which can cause them to be overlooked at animal shelters. My goal is to change the narrative through stuffed animals! The hope is the more kids learn, the more likely they will grow up to help animals in need. The best part? 10% of profits are donated to support the life-saving work of animal shelters. When you adopt a Shelter Pawz pup, you are making a difference in the lives of animals in need.

We currently offer four different plush dogs inspired from the shelter dogs: Jem, Junior, Luna, and Rex. Each Shelter Pawz pup arrives a in little kennel to accurately reflect the adoption process. They even come with a Certificate of Adoption and a space to name your dog. We have been in business less than 1 year and have already sold hundreds of our plush toys and made strong community connections with animal shelters in the Midwest. My dream is to continue this business and work towards its growth.

What’s been the best source of new clients for you?

Though Shelter Pawz is an e-commerce business, I strive to attend events as a vendor in my community. I found I gain the most amount of new customers when I am able to talk to people in-person about my business, mission, and vision. This way I can share my story of how I started Shelter Pawz and how I help animals. I can tell people sense my excitement and want to support not only my business, but me as a person. Shelter Pawz is truly my dream that I started by myself with the hopes of creating better lives for shelter animals, and people really pick up on that.

I have had so much success as a vendor at events, however events primarily happen in the summer (I live in Wisconsin which is only a few months out of the year). I thought about how I can engage with my target market in meaningful ways that get them excited about my business through online platforms. I wanted to have the same connection online as I do with folks I meet in-person. I started creating Instagram reels that are more personal so people would connect Shelter Pawz with my mission and also me as a person, a 25-year-old entrepreneur trying to make the world a better place for animals. This expanded our branding and created a more meaningful online community. Similarly to in-person events, my online platform was very receptive to me sharing this side of my business. Though it is always a challenge coming up with new ideas and reaching more people online, the most important thing to me is that I remain authentic and show people I really care about what I am doing and the affects it has.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

I currently sell on my website and Etsy. When I first started the business, I sold on my website as well as Amazon. I was really determined to be a seller on Amazon since that is where most people shop for stuffed animals online and it is a huge platform. I thought it would bring me large amounts of success.

All of this was very new to me at the time, and setting up my Amazon seller account was no easy task. I decided to opt for FBA inventory which is where you send your product to Amazon, and they handle the shipping/handling. I was drawn to this because my 500 sq ft apartment has limited capacity for me to ship a lot of products frequently and through Amazon’s shipping customers will receive their orders in 2-days.

I quickly learned selling on Amazon came with a lot of hidden fees. As soon as I was an official seller, their costs quickly rose unexpectedly. I was paying large amounts of money per month and even with selling products through their platform, I was not earning any profits. Meanwhile, our website sales were very few and far between since people opted to purchase through Amazon. Though the 2-day shipping was a benefit, my products would often arrive to the customer in awful conditions with the kennel each pup arrives in broken, creased, or ripped. Amazon was very rough with shipping them. I would see pictures of people’s orders and feel completed crushed that the products would arrive so damaged. I decided to wait until the holiday season to make any decisions since that is when most of our sales will occur. I wanted to see if my profits from that time of year would compensate for the loss of money in the previous months. Unfortunately during this time of year, Amazon tripled seller fees. I had a huge amount of money to pay them, and each order went towards that. After selling a lot of products during this time of year, I still owed Amazon hundreds of dollars. After the holiday season, their prices remained at an increase due to inflation. I was completely crushed. I put in so much work and money into selling on Amazon and it only led me to owning this huge beast of a corporation money each month despite selling my product.

I decided to make the switch and no longer sell on Amazon. I had to pay to remove the inventory I had left with them which took months on their end, resulting in me still paying monthly costs. It was a hard decision to make this pivot. I knew my customers would lose the convivence Amazon offers them, but this was the right decision. I finally got out of selling from Amazon. Apart from the website, I still wanted another platform that people could find my product at. I chose Etsy because I was already familiar with their seller platform and knew there were no hidden fees, and everything would be reasonably priced.

Overall, this was all an incredible learning experience. Any advice I would have to an entrepreneur is that the first year of your business is truly an experiment. You never really know what is going to work best until you try it, and do not be afraid to pivot. Now, most of our sales are coming from our website which has been way smoother than ever dealing with Amazon.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.shelterpawz.com
• Instagram: shelter_pawz
• Facebook: Shelter Pawz