We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Taylor Hall a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Taylor, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Alright, so you had your idea and then what happened? Can you walk us through the story of how you went from just an idea to executing on the idea
So, I had the idea to open up my store while I was in college. I have always been super interested in where the items we use in our daily life come from, and it’s no secret that supply chains frequently benefit the owners, not the people working in factories, and definitely not the environment. So, I started looking to shop for items that truly aligned with my values, that people get paid a fair wage, have decent working conditions, and help people live more sustainably! I started this journey about nine years ago, and back then, it wasn’t easy to discover brands that talked about their values or put people before profit in any transparent way. So I decided when the time came, I would open up my own shop and provide a space for people to shop in person and find things that they use every day where they know that the items have been ethically sourced and are made with sustainability in mind.
Since I was a college student at the time, I decided to get experience in retail before opening up my store. When I graduated, I started working for small retail/wholesale businesses focused on fair labor/sustainability. After about five years and when I had a good chunk of investments saved, I decided to take the leap. Because of my experience working for a small business, I gained terrific mentors that shared so much knowledge and resources with me, which made it a lot easier to take the leap.
I took a class at a local non-profit called Women Venture, which helps women start businesses by walking them through all aspects of a business plan & financials. I could take these resources to my bank to get a loan and to my landlord to show that I had a solid plan in place and would be a perfect fit for the space.
Going from idea to execution was a pretty long process for me. Even though right now I’m a one-woman show, I could not have opened without a large community of people supporting me and encouraging me along the way. And I’m super grateful that I was in a position to have all that support!
Taylor, 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 answered a bit of this in the last question. But as far as what Evergreen Collective is, it’s a retail environment focused on sustainably sourced home goods and personal care products. Evergreen Collective has everything from a cleaning refill station (you can refill your containers and eliminate the waste of plastic bottles!) to zero-waste makeup and even cooking utensils, door mats, and fair trade gifts.
I’m incredibly grateful for all the brands that exist today that didn’t nine years ago; the transparency around labor practices is outstanding and allows me to fill Evergreen Collective with products I know were made by people getting fair wages and who work in excellent conditions.
What sets Evergreen Collective apart from many places is the homey and cozy feel of the shop; it’s your neighborhood shop that feels welcoming! I wanted to make the process of purchasing sustainable items as easy as possible; while it’s still a work in progress, Evergreen Collective is for sure on the right track; I only opened in September of 2022, so there is still a lot of experimenting with merchandise and figuring out what my community needs. I honestly can’t wait to see how the store evolves!
I do love engaging with my customers about their challenges and big wins when using sustainable products in their homes, and I love that we can chat in a judgment-free zone. There is no one-size-fits-all solution for living a lower-waste lifestyle, and I love helping people find solutions that work for them.
Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?
For my retail space, it’s all about creating a welcoming environment that people feel comfortable in. This includes making sure that everything is merchandised in accessible ways, I get a lot of families and people who live in the neighborhood, so I like to keep my isles wide enough for strollers to pass through. It’s also essential to learn how to engage with customers; some like to engage with me a lot and will ask questions and even share their own strategies for living sustainably with me, while others like to wander around and check out the space for themselves, it’s all about ready people and making sure you’re taking care of them the way they want you to.
Here’s the key, if you can do that really well, people will tell their friends or purchase gift cards for their friends. Word of mouth is the best way to organically grow my audience, so it’s important that every person who steps foot into the store has an exceptional experience; I want them to tell people about it!
We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.
Evergreen Collective has a generous rewards program; for every $100 someone spends, they’ll get $5 off their next purchase. I do this for a couple of reasons, a lot is happening in the sustainable world today, online and in person, so this is an excellent incentive for people to come back and shop at Evergreen Collective. I also know that people can shop online and get less sustainable products for less money. My goal is to help make it more accessible for people to shop sustainably, and getting a coupon every few times you stop in helps!
Because I ask every single customer if they want to join the rewards program, it’s also a perfect opportunity to collect emails and grow my email list which is my favorite way to communicate with people.
Contact Info:
Image Credits
Sophie Sissi, took my portrait. However, I took the images of my shop.