In this conversation, Rhea Lana Riner, founder of Rhea Lana’s Children’s Consignment Events, shares her 28-year-long entrepreneurial journey. What started as a simple clothing swap in her living room transformed into a multi-million dollar franchise, striving to make high-quality children’s clothes accessible and affordable. With an emphasis on community, values, and personal growth in entrepreneurship, Riner offers insights into what it’s like starting a business as a woman from the ground up. She discusses how she started her business, challenges she overcame, and rewarding experiences that made the challenges all worth it. The conversation highlights the significance of storytelling, the resale market, and the power of franchising in building a successful business.
About Rhea Lana Riner
Rhea Lana Riner is the visionary entrepreneur, CEO, and founder of Rhea Lana's Children's Consignment Events. In 1997, Riner held a simple clothing swap in her living room, seeking low-cost, high-quality children’s clothes. Since then, she has transformed her clothing swaps into a multi-million dollar national franchise with over 120 locations across 26 states. As a mother of three, Riner has always known that this business is about more than just clothes. Her events aim to empower moms, build community, and create flexible pathways to entrepreneurship. Riner has helped thousands of families access high-quality, affordable children's merchandise and has mentored franchise owners to grow professionally, personally, and spiritually. For the past 28 years, Riner continues to be a leader in the ecommerce space, building a values-driven business and inspiring women to take on leadership roles.
Franchising offers a unique way to scale a brand sustainably.
Connecting to the heart of your customer is essential.
Fostering a community around your brand builds loyalty.
Women can lead and grow businesses without compromising family values.
Storytelling is a powerful tool for brand connection.
As a leader, personal growth is the key to long-term business success.
Interview Themes
Why does storytelling and emotional connection matter to a business?
Storytelling and emotional connection with your audience are essential because they help bring authenticity and humanity to a brand. Riner emphasizes that customers want to know who the people are behind a business. Customers value having that relationship between themselves and the brand, which is why having a story for customers to connect and relate with is important. An authentic brand fosters community and builds loyalty and trust.
What does holistic leadership look like in a business? Why is it important?
Holistic leadership means leading in a way that embraces the whole person. For Riner, that means integrating values of personal growth, family, and faith into her business. This results in a balanced and sustainable leadership that cultivates a work culture where people feel genuinely valued and empowered to grow professionally and personally. Through this approach, the well-being of the leadership team and the employees are equally valued.
What are the benefits of franchising?
Franchising allows businesses to scale in a sustainable, community-driven way. By empowering entrepreneurs to own and grow a portion of the brand in a local market, the company can expand its reach organically. Franchising also results in the formation of a network of like-minded entrepreneurs—a meaningful support system with shared business goals. Taking a slow, intentional approach to franchising helps ensure that growth is both effective and aligned with the company’s core values.
How does being a mother impact how you run your business?
For Rhea Lana Riner, going from a stay-at-home mom to a successful franchise leader was more natural than it may seem. Her experience as a mother deeply shaped Riner’s leadership style and approach to business. Lessons from motherhood equipped her with valuable skills—problem solving, crisis management, and communication—that are all applicable to leadership roles in the business world. Rooted in strong family values, Riner’s business also reflects her empathy for her customers. As a mother herself, Riner knew what moms needed and how her business could fulfill those needs. For Riner, motherhood was essential leadership training.
What advice would you give female entrepreneurs?
Don’t underestimate yourself
Riner often finds that many women hesitate to take the first step toward entrepreneurship or leadership because they doubt their own abilities. Recognize the strength and skills you already possess and put them to good use. Confidence develops with action, and oftentimes, women are far more capable than they believe. Be brave enough to begin.
Stay balanced
There is no need to sacrifice your personal values for the sake of success. Embracing holistic leadership is a great way to ensure that you’re focusing on not just the success of your company, but also your personal well-being. By aligning your business with your core beliefs and maintaining boundaries, you can build a company that thrives whilst supporting your personal lifestyle.
Always be open to learning
As a business owner, expect the unexpected. The life of a business is unpredictable and difficult challenges are inevitable, which is why learning to adapt is vital to running a successful business. Whether it’s learning new skills or adjusting your business strategy, staying adaptable and open to learning will prepare you for the ups and downs of running a business.
Chapters
00:00 Building a Community-Driven Brand
09:39 The Journey from Living Room to Franchise
19:28 Balancing Family and Entrepreneurship
29:28 Lessons in Sustainability and Resale Models
Transcript
Rhea Lana Riner
I think for me it has always been about connecting to the heart and making sure that I understand the needs of their family and their children. We have certain values that we go by—honesty and positivity. I think when you operate by a set of values and you stay true to your word, your customers see that. They see how you fill orders and how you, if someone complains, how do you handle customer service? Are you kind and are you authentic? And all those things play out in normal business operations. I think those things build brand loyalty and they build community because I've learned that community naturally builds around brands that we all love, you know, and then we love to share. I love this about this brand. This is this wonderful product that I got. This is the incredible customer service that they gave me. And I think those things all build community.
Glynis Tao
Welcome to Chase Your Dreams, a podcast for fashion entrepreneurs who want to build a purposeful and profitable clothing business so they can make a living doing what they love. I'm your host, Glynis Tao, an apparel business consultant and SEO specialist with 20 years apparel industry experience. I'm also a mom to a wonderfully energetic little boy named Chase.
Today on Chase Your Dreams, I'm thrilled to welcome Rhea Lana Riner, visionary entrepreneur, CEO, and founder of Rhea Lana's Children's Consignment Events. What began in 1997 as a simple clothing swap in her living room has since grown into a multi-million dollar national franchise with over 120 locations across 26 states. But for Rhea Lana, this business has always been about more than clothes. It's about empowering moms, building community and creating flexible pathways to entrepreneurship. She's helped thousands of families access high-quality, affordable children's merchandise and has mentored franchise owners to grow not just in business, but personally, professionally and even spiritually. In today's conversation, we'll explore how to build a community-driven brand that goes beyond products, why finding balance as a mom and entrepreneur is possible and essential, the lessons fashion ecommerce founders can take from franchising, resale and consignment models, and how to grow a profitable business while staying true to your values. Welcome, Rhea Lana. It's so nice to have you here today. Thanks for joining me on the podcast.
Rhea Lana Riner
Hi Glynis, it is a pleasure to be here.
Glynis Tao
Wonderful. So Rhea Lana, your business began as a clothing swap in your living room back in 1997. Can you share that moment when you realized this idea could grow into a franchise business?
Rhea Lana Riner
It was several years after I started. I didn't have a business background, didn't have a business education, and so really it was an accident, if I have to be completely honest. I started in my living room. I was a stay-at-home mom, and at the time my husband had left the corporate world and had gone into nonprofit work. Our money was tight and I was looking for a creative solution to be able to buy and sell my own kids’ clothes.
I loved shopping secondhand, but I just didn't feel like there was a high-quality experience at the time. And so, I invited some friends and I moved the furniture out of our living room. We had that very first sale in my living room.
And then the second sale, we decided to computerize it. My husband developed our software on the side. It was kind of just a little passion project. That doesn't mean anything now, Glynis, because we all carry around phones in our hand and they’re little, mini computers. But back in the mid 1990s, that was a big deal. Stay-at-home moms like me did not even have computers in their houses. So from early on, we were able to use computerization and technology to create this high-quality secondhand shopping experience.
And you asked about when it felt like it could turn into a franchising concept. It really took several years, but it did grow. They're pop-up events, so I only did it twice a year, but each time it would grow and take over another part of the house. I realized that there were so many moms like me out there that were also looking to not only sell their children's things for a fair price that they had taken good care of, but they wanted to be able to buy things at a fair price. So gradually, it grew and I could tell that I was meeting a need.
Glynis Tao
Fashion entrepreneurs often start small and sometimes even out of their homes. I did as well when I had my clothing brand I started on my kitchen table. So what lessons from your early days would you pass along to those building e-commerce brands today?
Rhea Lana Riner
Well, I think for one thing, stay true to your heart. What is it that you want to do with your brand? I think I was that mom and I knew who my customer was. For me, I needed to start small. I think this probably applies to other people. I didn't take a lot of investment money from people. We bootstrapped it and we only grew as we could afford to grow.
And then I think it's important to just stay in balance. I also had small children at home and I wanted to still stay true to my family values while I was trying to build this business. And so, it was important for me to be able to align both of those values. I didn't want to give up my family just to build some brand, cause I didn't want to get to the end of my life and be by myself. And so, I do think it's important to keep our priorities and our values combined so that we can find balance and do both.
Glynis Tao
Mm-hmm. So I read on your about page, your story, how you started this business out of your garage—just out of a need that you saw from families needing to make some extra money and selling their products consignment. They weren't able to get very much money from consignment stores. And so you thought of a different way, a different model that you created that didn't even exist at the time, to be able to solve this problem and this need, which you probably experienced yourself as a mom, right?
Rhea Lana Riner
Yes, I definitely did. You're right.
Glynis Tao
And so, from your story, it sounded like your husband had helped you in the early days, suggesting that maybe you use some computerized technology and you're like, ‘well, I don't know if moms really even use computers.’ But then, you found out that he was right and it really then helped you to launch your business and grow.
Rhea Lana Riner
You’re right!
Glynis Tao
Is it by embracing that aspect of it? Can you tell us a bit about that story?
Rhea Lana Riner
Absolutely, you're exactly right. When he first suggested it to me, I told him he was crazy. Like, there is no way that moms were going to do that. I absolutely did. Because again, moms didn't have computers in their houses. I didn't even know how to use a computer. We joke that he was definitely the visionary. Another joke we like to say is we had the only barcoded garage sale in the world in the 1990s because we were scanning tags and had barcodes and we would be able to give each consigner a report of exactly what she had sold.
And yes, it did come from my own experiences. I had consignment stores, but I just kind of felt when I would take things to sell at the consignment store, for one thing, I made a very small percentage of the earnings. I never knew what sold or for how much, and I just felt like I wanted to create a very authentic experience. And so, from that very first time with my husband's software, we would give each consigner, all 11 consignors or 15 at the time, a report. They could see each item that sold and exactly how much. And then we gave a very high percentage back. Back then it was 70%. Now we have to give 65%. We lost a fight with the government and had to change our percentage a little bit. But, we were able to give a very high percentage and I loved doing that cause I thought moms should get more of their money for their items.
Those were some of the unique things that we were able to do because we were in this event. We weren't having to open a store and people would say through the years, ‘Rhea Lana, when are you going to get serious and open a store?’ And I said, ‘never, never.’ That was never my goal—to open a store. I really wanted to do just these pop-up events. That way moms could gear up and clean out their house in the fall and then in the spring. That's what we love doing—just doing it twice a year. I just felt like that also fit with moms. Moms are so busy and have so many demands, but if they could just do once a year, really focus on cleaning things out and then as far as shopping, they could buy everything that their children need for the whole season. And so that's how it started.
And yes, technology has always been part of our solution. I would have an operational challenge at my events and then we would use technology to solve that problem for us. And it has definitely been a reason that we could continue to grow and have this now. I remember when it was small, Glynis, in my home, and I knew I could do it well in my home. I knew I could make it look like a boutique and have nice items, but I wondered, could we ever do it at a large scale? And so, it's really rewarding for me that we can now offer really large events in a space that's like 50,000 square feet—like a large Walmart or a large department store—and it's this beautiful marketplace where things are run excellently. It makes my heart happy because we can bring families in and they can have this excellent experience.
Glynis Tao
What is the process like when a franchisee first starts to work with you and how do you get them set up and started?
Rhea Lana Riner
Well, once a person is approved to be a franchisee, they of course have a fee that they pay to us. And then we take them through training. They get the Rhea Lana branding, they have our marketing materials, an operations manual. We do have some extensive training that they go through. They even come to our flagship event and train with my team. I still run our flagship event. And I love it because it's kind of a laboratory where I can still see our customers and I can test out new things. And I have my team, so they train with our flagship team. Once they have their first event, we will send someone to help them launch. And then we have continued support. We like to think about franchising as doing business in the community. We have this wonderful community of women helping women and we just know that we all rise together and we're all building this brand together. I love the idea of franchising. It's been a real blessing to me because you can build these deep friendships, but all around the same brand that we are all building together as we're serving families.
Glynis Tao
Yeah, and that just leads right into my next question on building a community-driven brand. You've created not just a business, but a marketplace that fosters community among moms. How did you intentionally build that sense of connection and what can fashion e-commerce founders learn about creating loyal customer communities online?
Rhea Lana Riner
Well I think it starts with understanding the heart of your customer. What is in their heart? What are they looking for? What needs are you meeting as the provider of that product? But I think for me, it has always been about connecting to the heart and making sure that I understand the needs of their family and their children. We have certain just values that we go by—honesty and positivity. I think when you operate by a set of values and you stay true to your word, your customers see that. They see how you fill orders and how you, if someone complains, how do you handle customer service? Are you kind? Are you authentic? All those things play out in normal business operations, and I think those things build brand loyalty and they build community because I've learned that community naturally builds around brands that we all love and then we love to share. I love this about this brand and this is this wonderful product and I got and this is this incredible customer service that they gave me. And I think those things all build community and loyalty.
Glynis Tao
In fashion, storytelling is critical. How have you leveraged storytelling for both your own and your franchisees to strengthen your brand and movement?
Rhea Lana Riner
Well, storytelling is, it's just authentic. It's because we all are living out our own lives and our journeys and I think our customers want to know what those stories are. I do think we have to get good at how to communicate them and express the emotion of the stories.
At our events, we get to see so many families whose needs are met. There was one time a family came in and their daughter had just finished cancer treatments—I think she was 10 years old—and the way they celebrated the end of each treatment was that they would buy her a hat. And so she had found this special hat at our event. Anyway, it just brought so much meaning to us because for us it was just a hat, but for them, it was this milestone in their daughter's health journey. When you can capture those stories in your business and tell them to your customers, those build even more community, they build loyalty, they build emotion. They show the emotion behind the brand. And then I think people also do want to know the people behind the brand. Who are the people that are building it? As we can tell those stories of our lives and our challenges, then people want to associate with that and they want to be part of that. It makes the brand come alive. It's not just a piece of clothing, it comes alive.
Glynis Tao
Yeah, but it also creates that support that people just want to get behind it as well.
Rhea Lana Riner
Yes.
Glynis Tao
It's not just about business, like I said, it's like a movement that you've created to be able to help moms get themselves off the ground, like get their businesses going, help to support their families. You often speak about helping moms navigate the many hats they wear. What advice do you give women entrepreneurs who are trying to balance scaling a business with family and personal responsibilities?
Rhea Lana Riner
I think a great perspective for women is to think that there are seasons of life. Like, life is different. And when I was getting started, I had three small children. Well, now I'm a grandma. I've got an empty nest and I've got five grandchildren. If we could have that perspective that life does change, then it gives us the long-term view. And some seasons, at least in my journey, I had to work a lot of hours. I mean, you know, entrepreneurs—I'm sure you experienced this too, Glynis—there are some years where I worked a lot. I mean, probably 60, 80, 100 hour weeks. Now I don't want to do that for 20 years, but there are some times when we do have to do what it takes. If we can, again, think through the seasons of life. We don't want to do that when our kids are small, they need us—they need us to be present. But as life changes, we do have more to give. We've got more bandwidth. We've got more time. And it’s fun. I've always looked at building a business a lot like raising children. You nurture it and then you get to watch this beautiful thing grow that you've poured your heart into. It is a wonderful thing, but I do think we have to balance the demands of family and business and think through what season of life am I in.
Glynis Tao
Yeah, and I can 100% relate to that. I'm a mom as well. I have a very energetic little 9-year-old boy, but prior to that, I also had a clothing brand which I ran for over 10 years. I called that my first baby because of the blood, sweat, and tears that I had put into that business and the countless hours. It just felt like it was another child of mine. And now, raising a real person is just a whole different level of responsibility. So as a mentor and leader, you've guided franchise owners to grow not just financially, but also personally, professionally and spiritually. Why is a holistic approach important and how can e-commerce founders apply that to their own teams?
Rhea Lana Riner
Well, we're all multi-dimensional people. We all have our values. We have our faith and we have our family and we have our work and all of those things are important. If we get it out of balance, it's like a wheel that's lopsided—it kind of clunks down the road. But if we can stay balanced, we get to create something beautiful. All of those things are important. And I love encouraging women though, as they are on this journey, to be sure that they're always growing personally because we want to become someone amazing down the road, right? It's one thing to be 20 years old. It's another thing to be 60. And you get this lifetime of experiences to keep growing from and challenges to overcome. And you can build resilience. But I do think part of that is stepping outside of our comfort zone and doing some new things. Overcoming challenges, you know. There were some years where we experienced big challenges. We fought the government. There was a regular regulation that they tried to say that we weren't up to it. Anyways, it was a long fight. It was like a nine year battle. But during that, it was such a great thing for me personally, because I got to grow as a leader. I ended up going to Washington, DC and testifying before Congress in the US.
Also while I was doing that, I was leading my franchise owners and teaching women how you can fight with grace, stand on what is true, and don't give up. We want to just lay on the floor and cry, but we really, we got to fight this thing and we got to have grace. And then once you get through those things, it gives you the capacity and the ability to fight the next challenge that comes along because there will always be challenges. And then you get to develop this skillset that you didn't know you had. I think that's what I've learned. When I first started, I was very introverted. I was very insecure. I wasn't confident in speaking. But you learn those things. The more that you're forced to do them, you get better and then you have these skills. I do encourage women to really keep growing in areas that they didn't even know that they were good at because then you end up somewhere at the end of your life or you can look back and you can leave a legacy that impacts generations to come behind you and really leave the world in a more positive place. I love for women to keep discovering their passion and their purpose and keep pushing themselves to get better, become leaders. The world needs them.
Glynis Tao
I love that. Yeah, moms just don't often get the credit that they deserve for what they do. It's a full-time job being a stay-at-home mom. No one can imagine how much work it is. It's a 24/7 job, which I didn't know and have a lot more appreciation for now that I am a mom myself. Yes, definitely. Thank you. I love what you do and I love how you really empower women to build that confidence because I think women really don't think that they are strong, right? But they don't realize just how strong they are until certain challenges come up. They often find it within themselves. It just comes out and they're probably even surprised that they were able to get through something as hard or as challenging as it was.
Rhea Lana Riner
You're right. I agree with that so much. I often look back on the years when I had three children under four years old and I sometimes think those years were harder than being a CEO of a company. Moms are doing really hard things and they don't realize the skills that they are developing. So you are 100 % right. And I think that being a mom, it is 24/7. You're constantly doing crisis management and creative problem solving and communication and moms end up with an incredible skill set that's very valuable.
Glynis Tao
Yeah, I often feel like my brain is split in half—mom brain and I have the business brain as well. Half of it's focused on my son's learning at school and having to prepare him for some test— coming up with spelling tests. And I'm like, okay, I got to get back to this client, respond to these 10 emails that I have before the end of the day. It just goes back and forth.
Retail can be tough, whether it be in consignment, fashion, or e-commerce alike. How have you kept your business profitable and relevant over decades? What advice do you have for founders trying to build brands with staying power?
Rhea Lana Riner
That is such a great question. You know, I have recently visited with some founders and it is tough. Not every business is guaranteed to have lasting power. For one thing, I feel really grateful. I think it starts with your product. You have to make sure you have a product that has staying power. If you have a product that has staying power, that's a great place to start. I always say we're never going out of business because moms are going to keep having kids and kids are going to keep wearing clothes. So I am thankful for that. But then, I think you have to have a model that can stand the test of time. You also have to be able to pivot and change. For us, we went through this battle with the government and ultimately we did lose the battle. We're still very glad we did it. We had to make a pivot and we had to make some changes and it was a risk, but it worked out for us. So you have to be able to pivot when needed and watch the times and how do you make those changes?
And I think too, as a founder, you have to grow. I remember I had heard of so many founders that held their businesses back—they were the reason their business didn't grow—and I never wanted to be one of those founders. And I think because I've always been so afraid of that, I may not be the best founder out there, but I'm going to try to be the best version of myself that I could be for my company. I think that's why personal growth has always been so important to me. I never really had a mentor, but I've read lots and lots of books and I'm always trying to see, who are the leaders out there that I can grow from?
Part of being successful and staying in business is building teams around you. That's one of your first transitions as a founder is to go from being the lone person to then having people around you who understand the heart of the business, understand the operations, because if there's only one of you, you're gonna bottleneck really fast. That's part of growth—being able to duplicate yourself and then build teams. That's one of the things I've enjoyed doing. It's not easy and it's hard and you invest in people and sometimes people let you down or they betray you, but then you also find nuggets. You find these diamonds along the way of amazing people who you end up working so well together. Your strengths and your weaknesses complement each other. I love that I've got some women who've been with me for a very long time. And then even now, we're hiring new young women to our corporate team. I love putting teams of women together. And really, I think that's ultimately the key to long-term. You have to have layers of leadership, of buy-in, and that gives you a chance to stay in business for a long time.
Glynis Tao
And many of our listeners run fashion brands and are also thinking about scaling. What lessons from franchising could apply to entrepreneurs trying to grow their stores into bigger businesses?
Rhea Lana Riner
I do love franchising. Franchising gives you a way to grow a brand that you're bringing other business owners in. You don't have to necessarily personally spend out a lot of money creating products, but you have these other business owners that are coming in. They love this brand, and so they're going to go build it in their community. And that's what I love about franchising.
I'm the franchisor, so a portion of their sales comes back to the franchisor and that helps us to create this corporate office, corporate team, where we're constantly researching the best marketing methods. We're creating the marketing products, creating operations and support. And so it's been a wonderful way to scale and grow a brand that feels sustainable. It's like having, little many brands out there, but all under this umbrella of building this Rhea Lana's brand. We all want to serve families in all these markets. And so, I think franchising is a wonderful way to scale.
My approach has always been slow and steady. I think some franchising companies want to grow super aggressively. My strategy has always been more of a slow growth because I want to make sure that I have a corporate team here that's equipped to provide adequate support for our franchise owners. And so, we have about 120 franchises right now, which is a lot. It's a great size, but we'd love to be 150. But we also want to have just enough that we can still provide adequate support.
Glynis Tao
Your franchise model provides women with flexible entrepreneurship opportunities. So what gaps did you see in the traditional business model ownership that made this path so powerful for you?
Rhea Lana Riner
I saw some gaps primarily in women leadership. I was trying to figure out a way that a woman like me could enjoy leadership, business, and growth while still having a family. Being able to stay true to all of her values and faith. My faith is the filter through which I make decisions and I wanted to stay true to who I was and not have to feel like I needed to compromise my values.
I think if I were going to say some of the gaps I've seen, that's what I have seen. The opportunities that I want to create for women, both as franchise owners and on my corporate team here, I'm trying to create an environment where women can raise their families, they can stay true to their faith, they can also have a wonderful career. Those are some of the gaps I've seen that I hope we have filled and we continue to fill and create more opportunities for women.
Glynis Tao
The resale and consignment space is booming now in fashion. What do you think fashion brands, especially smaller e-commerce brands, what can they learn from a consignment model about sustainability, pricing, and customer trust? Does a consignment model, could that even work for someone on an e-commerce level who owns an e-commerce business or is it more to do with in-person selling?
Rhea Lana Riner
I was thinking about some of the brands, some of the nice brands that I buy online, I have seen them reach back out to me and say, ‘hey, when you're ready to sell that, we would like to buy it from you.’ And I think they do have an e-commerce portion of their site where they sell gently used items. So it's just something to think about. I thought it's a great idea, honestly. And so maybe your audience can think about that and how to unpackage it.
But, my background is, you know, I didn't come from a family with a lot of money and so I've never been able to afford expensive brands. And so, I think that also set the stage. It's one reason I loved secondhand. I like the value that high expensive fashion brings, but I couldn't afford the price tag. And I think that's what consignment has done. It gives you a way to afford the high-quality, high end brands for a cheaper price. I do think that families care about the price point. So if you can make your products, find that price point that families can afford. Make it high-quality enough though, so that they can resell it.
I remember back when I was getting started years ago thinking about what I was gonna do, I lived in a small town in Texas in the US and there was only two places to shop. There was Walmart. Everybody knows what Walmart is, right? And this was in the 90s and clothes that came from Walmart, if you washed them once, they fell apart. They were terrible. So I didn't really want to buy clothes from Walmart for my kids. Or there was this really expensive boutique in town where, you know, one little onesie for my child cost, you know, over a hundred dollars. And that was in the 90s. And I knew it was a good brand, but I couldn't afford that. And so that's what made me think, ‘how can I create this middle space for moms like me who don't want Walmart, but they also can't afford the high fashion?’
I would encourage your audience to keep thinking about the middle market, moms like me, who want high-quality at a reasonable price and make sure that as you're creating these products, make sure they're not the kind that are gonna fall apart the first time you wash them. Because I think that's what builds loyalty as well is when moms know they're gonna keep this piece of clothing. It washes well, I can resell it down the road, and then people talk about that brand that has the resale value. I hope that makes sense, but through the years we watch some brands, hey, this is a great brand, because if I take care of it, I'm able to sell it for a really good price. And I think that creates some longevity for some brands.
Glynis Tao
Yeah, absolutely. I think certain brands can be passed on and they just have this, you know, I guess, a longevity.
Rhea Lana Riner
And style maybe too?
Glynis Tao
Or style to people in terms of what the brand means to them. And so, I think there's also that personal connection too, that people have with clothing.
Rhea Lana Riner
I agree I'm so glad you said that, Glynis, because there is a personal connection and we have moms who come into their event and they're getting ready to sell their children's things and they're crying. I mean, because we remember our children when they wore certain clothes and I still have great pride when I think about how hard I worked to buy nice things for my kids. And so, there's a lot of emotional connection with clothing, especially children's clothing, if they're things that our children wore as moms, we have deep emotion. And that creates loyalty to brands.
Glynis Tao
Yeah, I mean, there are certain pieces that I will never give away. I'm going to keep forever because it just has meaning to me and I just want to hold on to those forever. So this is a very interesting space. I think it's different because I was just looking up, you know, like online consignment stores or resellers and there's a lot bigger brands like Depop where it's an online marketplace for resell. That's more for maybe designer clothing, but not so much in the children's wear space. So, I mean, there's perhaps an opportunity there.
Rhea Lana Riner
You know, what's interesting about that is back years ago, I mean, this was honestly probably in the late-90s, I actually had a website and we actually did sell some things online. And I personally didn't love it. We still like selling in-person. And so, we might do online. I know there's a need out there. I do a lot of my shopping online, but it's like you said, it's an interesting thing to be, to be thinking about.
Glynis Tao
And not for everyone, I think. Not for everyone. You've built a multi-million dollar brand while staying grounded in your family and values. What has been the most rewarding part of this journey for you?
Rhea Lana Riner
The most rewarding part is watching my own children. They were what motivated me to get started. I have two daughters and a son. I wanted them to see, and I'm sure you see this with your son, I wanted them to watch their mom work hard. I wanted them to know that you have to work hard in life. Money doesn't just appear on the doorstep. You do have to work hard. And I wanted them to see me solve problems and serve customers and serve families and meet needs in our community. Now my children are adults and just watching how they have this foundation of watching their mom work hard has brought me so much joy.
And then truly, these franchise owners that I have, they are women who have had zero business experience and now they have become business leaders—not just business women, but business leaders. And they’re building teams and they're affecting their communities, and now several work on my corporate team and they're helping me build a company. And it's just really rewarding to know that you're positively impacting other people's lives and making their lives better. I think this is the most rewarding thing.
I'm honestly grateful that we are still in business and still growing and that we still have a footprint even after 30 years. In many ways, we're sort of just getting started. It takes a while to figure things out. And so, I'm really proud that we're still relevant. Part of our job is to connect with the next generation of new moms out there, and so I love that people are still discovering us and they're like, ‘huh, I've never heard of this.’ And we're like, ‘well, we've been here for 30 years.’ But it's kind of fun that families are just discovering us. I love to watch young families realize how we can help them save so much money and get high-quality things for their families. So it's a lot of fun. It's very rewarding. And I feel very blessed to still be doing this.
Glynis Tao
If you could go back to that first living room clothing swap that you did, what would you tell yourself now about the journey ahead?
Rhea Lana Riner
I would say, first of all, Rhea Lana, you can do a lot more than you think you can. And so be brave, buckle up, and just give it your best shot. There's a wonderful path down there, but you just gotta keep putting one foot in front of the other, and it'll be a remarkable journey.
Glynis Tao
Amazing. Where can people find you if they want to get in touch with you?
Rhea Lana Riner
Well, first you can find us at rhealana.com. It's R-H-E-A-L-A-N-A, rhealana.com slash podcast. We don't have a podcast, but if our audience would like, there's a form there that you can fill out and I'm offering a free, 30-minute consultation just to chat about personal growth. Or if anyone is interested in franchising or just about leadership, it's just a free opportunity we're giving. And then we're also on LinkedIn and Instagram and Facebook. I'm Rhea Lana Riner, or you can find us at Rhea Lanas. We're just grateful to be here with your audience. You're doing great things. I love the message that you are giving and your journey is wonderful as well, Glynis.
Glynis Tao
Thank you so much, Rhea Lana, for sharing your incredible journey with us. From living room clothing swap to a national franchise, your story is proof that businesses rooted in purpose, community, and values can truly change lives. For all the fashion e-commerce founders listening, I hope you take away the importance of not just chasing revenue, but creating a brand that empowers others, builds trust, and lasts for the long haul. Thank you so much.
Rhea Lana Riner
Thank you for having me.
Glynis Tao
Thank you so much for tuning in. You can find me on Instagram, @glynistao, and my website, glynistao.com. Please subscribe to Chase Your Dreams podcast if you haven't already. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with others who you think this may help. Lastly, it would be great if you left a rating and review for our podcast. See you next time!
What does it really take to thrive in the ever-changing e-commerce world? In this special live edition of the Chase Your Dreams podcast from Ecom North, Glynis Tao interviews several inspiring leaders in the e-commerce space. Hear from e-commerce founders Gillian Liu of Kiyoko Beauty, Hannah Wang of The Aesthetics Studio, Andy Hsu of MotionGrey, and Hellen Harbilas of Hellen’s Boutique, as they share success stories, challenges, and valuable insights on running successful businesses in the rapidly changing digital landscape. Each guest shares their unique experiences and growth strategies, emphasizing the need for adaptability and innovation in the e-commerce industry. Ready to chase your own dream? Tune in and get inspired by real founders shaping the future of ecommerce.
🔥 My Online Visibility Roadmap uncovers the hidden technical + SEO issues holding you backand gives you a clear plan to fix them.
Gillian Liu is the co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer at Kiyoko Beauty, a Toronto-based online retailer for authentic Asian beauty products. While working her 9-5 corporate job, Liu started Kiyoko Beauty in 2021. With skincare, haircare, and makeup sourced from Japan and Korea, Liu strives to make Asian beauty accessible to everyone. What initially started as a side hustle has now grown into one of the top Asian beauty brands in North America. Through content creation, Liu has grown a following of nearly 300,000 people on social media and continues to showcase her successful entrepreneurial journey alongside her 9-5 lifestyle.
Hannah Wang is the founder of The Aesthetics Studio, an Ontario-based sticker and stationery shop with a focus on promoting mental health awareness. At 17 years old, Wang graduated from high school in the middle of the pandemic. During lockdown, she was inspired to embrace her creative side and open an Etsy shop, designing and selling her own stickers, washi tape, and assorted stationery. As an advocate for mental health, Wang’s business has evolved to promote mental wellness through journaling, creative expression, and coloring as a form of self-care and connection.
Andy Hsu is the co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of MotionGrey, a Vancouver-based ergonomic office furniture company with a mission to make standing desks and chairs more accessible and affordable. With a background in civil engineering, design, and marketing, Hsu combined his passions and decided to pursue his own entrepreneurial journey in 2018. Through authentic storytelling and strategic marketing efforts, Hsu has grown MotionGrey into a successful multi-channel business with products available on Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy, and more.
Hellen Harbilas is the founder and creative director of Hellen’s Boutique, a Toronto-based brand specializing in luxury sculptural candles and handmade home decor. Frustrated by overpowering scents and synthetic ingredients in candles, Harbilas set out to create soy candles that were both beautiful and gentle on the senses. Launched in 2021 during the pandemic, Harbilas built Hellen’s Boutique from the ground up, teaching herself everything from product development to web design. Through pop-up markets and content creation, what began as a personal solution evolved into a successful ecommerce business.
Consistent and quality content is crucial to e-commerce growth.
SEO is a long-term strategy that requires consistent effort.
Building trust with customers is essential for success.
Authenticity and storytelling are important for standing out in crowded markets.
A good product must be paired with a strong brand identity.
In-person connections can enhance online business growth.
Continuous learning and adaptation are vital for future proofing your ecommerce business.
Interview Themes
Why is finding a niche important for brands?
Finding a niche allows brands to stand out in crowded markets. By targeting a specific niche with a specific audience who want specific products, brands are more likely to match with the right customers. Gillian Liu focused on breaking the misconception that Asian beauty is only for Asian consumers, striving to make Asian beauty accessible to all. Andy Hsu found a gap in the market for affordable ergonomic office furniture, designing high-quality products that are accessible to a wider audience. Hannah Wang combined mental health advocacy with stationery products, turning creative expression into a purpose-driven niche. Hellen Harbilas identified the niche for decorative and allergen-free candles for people with sensitivities.
Identifying and building a brand around a specific niche enables better brand positioning and a stronger emotional connection with your target audience.
What marketing strategies are vital in the stages of a growing ecommerce business?
According to various ecommerce founders, several key strategies were highlighted as vital marketing efforts during the early stages of their businesses. Digital marketing strategies such as SEO, content creation, and email marketing were identified as important tactics to grow a small business. Gilian Liu emphasized the importance of organic social media content, underlining its effectiveness when cultivating a strong relationship between the brand and its customers. Andy Hsu credited his brand’s success to email marketing, citing it as an effective marketing strategy to build long-term relationships with customers, starting from their inbox. In-person marketing was also found to be effective with Hannah Wang and Hellen Harbilas, both claiming that face-to-face conversations and physical interactions with the product helped grow their business and drive sales immensely.
Why is storytelling important when building a brand?
Storytelling gives brands an emotional presence, making the brand more personable and easier to build trust with from a consumer’s perspective. An authentic brand story humanizes the company and invites customers to invest in the brand’s journey, not just the products.
How has AI changed the digital retail landscape today?
AI is reshaping how brands show up online, specifically in search. With AI Overviews and ChatGPT gradually becoming primary sources of information for searchers, discovering new and small businesses has become more challenging. This is where a curated brand narrative comes into play. By establishing a clear brand narrative with problem-solving content, ecommerce businesses can break through the noise and take advantage of algorithmic search instead of letting algorithmic search take over them. Essentially, AI is forcing ecommerce companies to rethink content, visibility, and the customer experience, so learning how to work with AI instead of pushing it away will help your company more than hurt it.
What does the future of ecommerce look like?
AI-Integrated Tools AI continues to work itself into the ecommerce space, affecting how consumers discover your brands and its products. Luckily, using these AI tools for your brand’s benefit is becoming easier. Multi-Channel Selling With new ways to shop being created everyday, a multi-channel sales experience has never been more important. Relying on one channel, such as a Shopify store, limits who can find your product. By diversifying your sales channels, you ensure that your products are easily discoverable on various platforms.
What advice would e-commerce founders give to new entrepreneurs?
Start before you’re ready You don’t have to know everything about running an ecommerce business before becoming an entrepreneur. As Liu and Harbilas mentioned, every ecommerce founder begins their entrepreneurial journey with uncertainty. What’s important to keep in mind as an entrepreneur is that you need to be ready to learn and adapt. You learn by doing, so start now!
Create authentic content to connect and build trust with your audience People want to invest in companies that they can trust and it starts with how they perceive your brand. Creating an authentic online presence that your audience can relate to will encourage them to cultivate a strong relationship with your brand. Stay rooted in your ‘why’ You’ve found your niche, established your mission statement, and turned your personal passion project into an ecommerce brand. With the ever-changing online retail landscape forcing businesses to consistently adapt and re-strategize, it’s important to not lose sight of why you started your business. Carry that why through every business decision you make.
Chapters
00:00 The Future of Ecommerce and the Founders Defining It
01:06 Gillian Liu of Kiyoko Beauty: Content Creation for Asian Beauty
07:11 Hannah Wang of The Aesthetics Studio: Advocating for Mental Health Awareness Through Stationery
14:08 Andy Hsu of MotionGrey: Brand Storytelling for Ergonomic Furniture
21:20 Hellen Harbilas of Hellen’s Boutique: Finding Your Niche with Luxury Candles
Transcripts
Glynis Tao
Hi everyone and welcome to a special live edition of the Chase Your Dreams podcast coming to you from Ecom North. I'm your host, Glynis Tao. Normally on the show, we dive into the journeys of founders, fashion entrepreneurs, and e-commerce leaders. But today, we're on the ground at one of the most exciting events for digital commerce in North America. Over the next few minutes, I'll be speaking with founders who are building brands in real time, facing real challenges and pushing the boundaries of what's possible in e-commerce.
We'll talk about what's working, what's keeping them up at night, and where they see the industry heading, especially in the age of AI, rising ad costs, and shifting consumer behavior. So let's get started and hear directly from the voices shaping the future of e-commerce.
Welcome to Chase Your Dreams, a podcast for fashion entrepreneurs who want to build a purposeful and profitable clothing business so they can make a living doing what they love. I'm your host, Glynis Tao, an apparel business consultant and SEO specialist with 20 years apparel industry experience. I'm also a mom to a wonderfully energetic little boy named Chase.
My first guest is Gillian Liu, who is the co-founder at Kiyoko, a Toronto Bay station beauty e-commerce business. With a focus on organic content marketing, Kiyoko has achieved impressive mid-seven figure revenue while the founders maintained their full-time careers. Gillian leads the brand's marketing strategies, driving the company's success through authentic, engaging content that resonates with audiences. Here, Gillian talks about how a viral video boosted e-commerce growth and how they use content and SEO to drive traffic to their website at the very beginning of their business.
Please introduce yourself. Can you tell me your name and what you do?
Gillian Liu
I'm Gillian Liu. I'm one of the co-founders of Kiyoko Beauty. We're an online Asian beauty retailer. Think of us like the Sephora for Asian beauty. We sell Korean and Japanese skincare, haircare, and makeup.
Glynis Tao
Amazing. And so this is probably your second year at Econ North. Is that right? Last year was your first year here.
Gillian Liu
Yes, I was just an attendee last year and it was my first time attending a conference like this. And then this year I'm lucky to be back as a speaker.
Glynis Tao
That's amazing. Was that one of the highlights of the conference so far for you?
Gillian Liu
Yeah, I think so. It was really nice to just see how many people connected with my story and my narrative. What my talk was about was just to challenge people’s conceptions about escaping the 9-5 and trying to do the traditional entrepreneurial path, but I think my story is that you can do both. You can do your 9-5 and use it as a tool to scale your side hustle.
Glynis Tao
And can you tell me quickly about your brand and what makes it stand out?
Gillian Liu
Yeah, so Kiyoko is a Japanese girl's name and we decided to make it because our mission is to make Asian beauty for everyone. So I think for a long time, a lot of people thought of Asian beauty as only for Asian people and what we've been trying to do is make information about Asian beauty super accessible.
Our organic content has almost 300k followers and we make content every single day to make Asian beauty really accessible and understood by everyone and our customers range in ethnicity, age, and different demographics across North America.
Glynis Tao
Can you tell me, how did you get started in e-commerce?
Gillian Liu
It started off as like, “we'll do it for fun.” We started carrying maybe 30 Japanese skincare products and maybe had a couple orders every week and then it just really started taking off. I never thought I would be in ecommerce, but it just happens to be one of those things where you stumble into it and you really enjoy it and so we continued.
Glynis Tao
And in the early days of Kiyoko Beauty, what marketing strategies did you use to grow your business?
Gillian Liu
I think that very early on, we realized that content is an amazing way to market because it is free. You post it once and then you don't have to pay for it ever again. Early on, we found that if you make a viral video, it can change your business trajectory and that's exactly what we've had. We had a viral video in 2021, with 3 million hits on TikTok. And that was really the signal for us to double down on content.
Glynis Tao
And so, in a crowded e-commerce space, what do you think builds the most trust with customers today? Is it reviews, content, brand story, or something else?
Gillian Liu
I think it’s content because I think when you are known for content, people have established a trust and a relationship with your account and your brand. And so you're not just some other website. People have been watching you for months on their social media and they've come to trust you—that way that you can stand out across. Especially in my space, I'm a commodity. Anyone can start an Asian beauty store, but I think the difference is that people have built up that trust with us.
Glynis Tao
And if you had to place one big bet for the future of e-commerce, whether it's channel, technology, or strategy, what would it be?
Gillian Liu
That’s such a good question. I don't think about e-commerce as a whole. I very much stay in my lane. Like I think about Kiyoko and I don’t think about the industry at large. I think that in the world of AI, you will see a lot more AI-integrated tools. But also, I think when you sell physical goods, you're kind of like AI-proofed in a way because you're not selling software. It can't easily replace toiletries for example. That’s why I think it's a good time to be in a product business.
Glynis Tao
And I think I saw an interview that you did where you had mentioned that you had done some SEO at the very beginning of your business. So how important is SEO to you now considering all the changes happening with AI search and more? Has that taken a hit on your organic traffic?
Gillian Liu
It actually hasn't because I think SEO is like a long game—you build up your SEO over time. At first, it was something that you just have to make sure that your product descriptions are optimized and things like that. I don’t think that we do anything crazy on SEO, but we have been doing a lot more affiliate lately and that also helps with SEO because blogs and other sites are linking back to you. Slowly and steadily our SEO score can increase, but it's not something that I'm thinking about all the time. There’s no golden key that will just unlock SEO. It's a long-term game.
Glynis Tao
Yeah, absolutely. But you did mention that you create content and sounds like you do blogging as well, so I’m sure that helps to bring some of the traffic in as well.
And so if you weren't running this brand, what would you be doing? What would you be doing today?
Gillian Liu
I mean, I think that I would be working a 9-5 corporate job. I think that this world has opened up to me because of Kiyoko. Even coming to this conference last year, it's where I met so many people that just opened up this whole world of alternative career paths. I think that if I hadn't started Kiyoko, I wouldn't be in this. Now, if I were to start over today and I was like, I'm going to start a new brand, I don't know. I don't really think about this too often, but maybe something about pets. I feel like people love their pets and more and more people are not having children and choosing to have pets instead. So it's a growing market.
Well then, maybe in the future.
Glynis Tao
Well Gillian, thank you so much for sharing your story and insights on the special live edition of Chase Your Dreams at Econ North. Thank you.
Gillian Liu
Thank you.
Glynis Tao
What is your name and what do you do?
Hannah Wang
My name is Hannah. I run the stationery company called The Aesthetics Studio where I design stickers, stationery products like bookmarks, greeting cards, keychains, pretty much any gift items you can think of with all original designs. I currently sell directly to customers on Etsy and my website as well as to retailers on Fair Wholesale.
Glynis Tao
And is this your first time at Econ North?
Hannah Wang
Yes, this is my first time here.
Glynis Tao
What has been the highlight of the conference so far?
Hannah Wang
I think just connecting with other entrepreneurs, especially in the e-commerce space and also hearing the talks from different brands that have done really well and seeing how they've been able to scale and grow their businesses has been really inspiring.
Glynis Tao
And so can you tell me quickly about your brand and what makes it stand out?
Hannah Wang
Yeah, so my brand has a very strong focus in mental health awareness and promoting mental health coping strategies through the art of journaling, creative expression, and even coloring. We have a coloring book that's been doing really well, both in retail spaces and online. And it's because of how we've designed it. It's different than other coloring books where each item that you color is very small and digestible compared to a huge page that you usually find in coloring books. And so we've had a lot of customers find that more approachable and it's made our book very unique that people will come and buy it. We've had a lot of great feedback about that book.
So for us, being able to advocate for mental health awareness, letting people know that the benefits of journaling of mental health through the art of journaling has been really great. And we hope to promote that through stickers because we find that using stickers, using cute stationery really gets you wanting to use your journals, planners more, and in turn you definitely see an impact on your mental health.
Glynis Tao
Amazing! So how did you get started in e-commerce?
Hannah Wang
Yeah, so I started when I was 17. I had graduated high school and I was right during lockdown and I was like, I need something to do. So I started an Etsy shop and I was working on my Etsy shop. Everything was going great. But, I honestly don't remember fully what happened, but Etsy had to suspend my shop. I think it's because something I inputted was wrong. My mistake, I put something in wrong, but Etsy had to suspend my shop.
When Etsy suspended my shop, I started looking into it and I realized that while this time they'll probably fix it, there's a chance in the future that Etsy could just shut off your shop for no real reason. I've seen it happen, I've read about it happening to other creators, other artists. And I was like, I can't just have all my eggs in one basket. I need my own platform that I have control over.
So then I started my own website and now I ship directly to customers on my website. But I also still use Etsy just because there are benefits to Etsy too, but I don't want to rely solely on Etsy. So that's why I have my own website. I do all of the shipping, fulfillment, customer service, product listings, chronography, all of that on my own.
Glynis Tao
And you've been doing this for about five years?
Hannah Wang
Yes, five years.
Glynis Tao
In the early days of your brand, what marketing strategies did you use to grow your business?
Hannah Wang
Primarily Instagram. It's still the biggest platform that I use in terms of social media. I really relied heavily on Instagram and it was great because everybody was online pretty much all the time. So I would say Instagram was definitely the key. Now that we've switched back to more in-person events, I've been slowly doing more markets, more in-person events, doing pop-ups and things just to get that in-person connection as well.
Glynis Tao
And so in a crowded e-commerce space, what do you think builds the most trust with customers today? Is it reviews, content, brand story, or something else?
Hannah Wang
I think all of it plays a role. I think your brand needs to be unique to you, but it also needs to have products that are good on its own. So if anything is out of balance, it doesn't work. You need to have a good brand that's recognizable, but you also need to have products that actually live up to what you say they are. So your stickers need to be good quality. They need to be printed well, they can't be blurry, the cut lines need to be good. There's a lot of things that go into the production that needs to be really well made. And then you also need the brand side to be recognizable, reputable, like working with other companies. Doing content collaborations for example, is a great way to get your brand recognized with other companies as well as other customers. So I would say it's a mix of everything.
Glynis Tao
And if you had to place one big bet for the future of e-commerce, whether it's a channel, technology, or strategy, what would it be?
Hannah Wang
I have seen a lot of people talk about live shopping as one of the things that's growing and emerging. I think that is really cool. What I envision is kind of similar. It’s live shopping in a sense where, it’s not like VR exactly, but you would have products listed out and it's almost like a live auction where people can talk. You can walk through and share with a customer what's going on.
Because I think that a lot of times with online shopping, you don't get that in-person touch—people can't touch the product, they can't feel it. They can only look at the reviews, only look at the photos, but with live shopping, they can say, can you just show me the back of that? You can turn the camera around. Or can you flip through to this page? Or can you tell me how thick it is? Things like that, you can actually talk to your customer and it's almost like you're at a market event, but it makes it more accessible for people who aren't able to make it to market events. Or say they live too far away, but they still get a lot of the benefits that they would get if they were shopping in person. So I think that is really interesting. I'm not exactly sure how that will go, but I have heard of live shopping as one of the things that are emerging right now.
Glynis Tao
Yeah, that's very interesting. And if you weren't running your brand, what would you be doing other than that today?
Hannah Wang
If I wasn't running my brand, I would probably be running a different brand, to be honest. I really also enjoy crocheting and I've been getting more into crocheting. I started crocheting a few years ago and I've been designing patterns and things. So I think if I wasn't doing my brand, I would probably focus on crocheting. Looking at selling crochet patterns, looking at maybe even a crochet e-commerce platform because there are other platforms out there, but they're generally more restricted.
And I'm envisioning something more like Etsy, but like on a wider scale. So there are things I would love to do, I just don't have the ability to do it right now.
Glynis Tao
Maybe in the future.
Hannah Wang
Yeah, in the future.
Glynis Tao
Well Hannah, thank you so much for sharing your story and insight today and thank you for being here.
Hannah Wang
Thank you for having me. It was really nice talking to you.
Glynis Tao
Let’s start off by introducing yourself. What's your name and what do you do?
Andy Hsu
Sure. I'm the co-founder of MotionGrey. We are an e-commerce business focusing on ergonomic office furniture. So things like standing desk, office chairs, we are specializing in that niche and we've been doing it for eight years now.
Glynis Tao
Awesome. And so this isn't your first time at Econ, right?
Andy Hsu
No, actually the second time.
Glynis Tao
Second time! Awesome. So what's been the highlight of the conference for you so far?
Andy Hsu
For sure. So I think the first time I've been here, even now, I feel like there's a lot of buzz and energy around the room. I think in many ways, when I come to these events, I get the passion and the drive. It gets re-lit all the time. So I think just being around different entrepreneurs really propels another level of motivation that I can bring back to my own business. So yeah, just being around great people is the highlight, I would say, for Ecom North.
Glynis Tao
And so, tell me quickly about your brand and what makes it stand out.
Andy Hsu
Yeah. So the evolution of MotionGrey has been eight years. We focus on standing desks and office chairs, but we're really trying to bring the most value to our customers. We focus on innovation and product, but delivering that at an affordable price. So I think when we first got into the market, the options out there were very expensive and we wanted to close that gap because as users, we don't want to pay $1,000, $2,000 or something like that for what is essential. So from there, we really focused on product quality and pricing as well. Things from warehousing, logistics, even marketing, everything is done in and out to provide the best solution and cost effective model for the customer.
Glynis Tao
Wonderful. So you've been in this business for eight years now. What made you decide to get into e-commerce?
Andy Hsu
Wow, that's a good question. I actually didn't start off with e-commerce. I started as a website designer for small businesses. I was always very interested in being an entrepreneur, but I didn't know how to go into the market, but I really love the element of marketing. I like the element of designing. And e-commerce kind of combines both of that. It gives you a tangible product and also a way to market that product as well.
Coming from a civil engineering background, I do really resonate with product design, how to improve on an existing, visible product, and the creative part of myself, which is marketing, is a complete circle of what my passion is. So e-commerce really puts the two together for me. So I really, really love that.
Glynis Tao
Yeah. And you started off selling gaming chairs, didn't you?
Andy Hsu
Yes, I did!
Glynis Tao
In the early days? I remember that. Jason was so excited about those chairs. I think he got one for himself.
Andy Hsu
And we used to do conventions together to sell the chairs to a lot of passionate people. But yeah, like at the time, as a younger 20 year old, people around us were gaming. Esports was a huge, huge thing then and even now. But that's the initial idea of the office furniture brand which is MotionGrey. Gaming chairs were the initial product that we tapped into because it was a little bit bigger, a little bit bulkier, higher gear of entry to enter. So we found a good gap within that market. And then from there, it expanded into what we see as MotionGrey today.
Glynis Tao
Okay. Do you still sell gaming chairs?
Andy Hsu
We do, but it's expanded into MotionGrey.
Glynis Tao
Amazing. In those early days of MotionGrey, what marketing strategies did you use to grow the business?
Andy Hsu
For sure. I think the first one that I really locked in was email marketing. I think even with organic traffic or just people talking about MotionGrey, you really want to capture the customer information as soon as you can because that is where the real gold is, which is the emails, the phone numbers, and also the contact to the customer. So I really emphasize on making sure we were really diligent in our email marketing and email marketing campaigns. And from there, once you understand your funnel, then you can start to expand into paid ads. But the foundation was email marketing.
Glynis Tao
So, in a crowded e-commerce space, what do you think builds the most trust with customers today? Is it reviews, content, brand story, or something else?
Andy Hsu
I think you need the essentials. You definitely need to have a really great product because that's what would speak volume and that's what can extend the company to be in this market. But I would say authenticity in this crowded market is quite important. Not so much where ads can just deliver a direct sell, but I think the authenticity of a brand and also founder-like content has really risen in the last couple of years because in a crowded space, like where we're at now, I think being open and authentic from the founder perspective can really push a brand in the next couple of years.
Glynis Tao
Yeah, so storytelling you would say?
Andy Hsu
Storytelling is huge.
Glynis Tao
So if you had to place one big bet for the future of e-commerce, whether it's channel technology or strategy, what would it be?
Andy Hsu
Yeah, I think so with MotionGrey, we really maximize on marketplaces—Amazon, you got your Walmarts or your Best Buy. I think many sellers in the DTC space, they only focus on Shopify, but from the standpoint of visibility or just being able to generate a high top line and to use that cashflow to really build out your DTC business. I think being able to have your products on different marketplaces can actually simultaneously grow your business as a whole. I think implementing that strategy can really push a brand forward really quickly. So that's how we've been able to build an $18 million company. Not because we will rely strictly on Shopify, but we had to mix up Amazon, the Walmarts, the Best Buys, the Staples with our Shopify site. So cohesively, you can grow a company a lot quicker and get more visibility and eyes to your brand.
Glynis Tao
So having that diversity of distribution channels.
Andy Hsu
Multi-channels, yes.
Glynis Tao
It’s huge.
Andy Hsu
Yes.
Glynis Tao
Okay, and on all these different marketplaces.
Andy Hsu
I would say so.
Glynis Tao
And so, what would you be doing if you were not running this brand?
Andy Hsu
I think I might go back to website design. As a kid, I really loved designing shoes. I loved to play basketball. So in high school, I would actually draw basketball shoes. So like that design element, that design passion has always been there. I think a website designer or an element of that would probably be something that I look into. So, I'll be an entrepreneur still.
Glynis Tao
Still an entrepreneur!
Andy Hsu
Hopefully.
Glynis Tao
That's in your blood.
Andy Hsu
I think so, yeah.
Glynis Tao
Amazing. Well, Andy, thank you so much for sharing your story and insights today and for joining me on a special live edition of Chase the Dream's podcast at Econ North.
Andy Hsu
All right. See ya!
Glynis Tao
Tell me, what's your name and what do you do?
Hellen Harbilas
So my name is Hellen and I'm the owner and founder of Hellen's Boutique. I sell luxury sculpture candles, handmade pieces, and decor.
Glynis Tao
Is this your first time at Ecom North?
Hellen Harbilas
It is, yes.
Glynis Tao
What's been the highlight conference for you so far?
Hellen Harbilas
I think it's been very informative. I was a little scared coming in here and you like you got to spend a little bit of money to come here and some of these conferences don't really have added value, you know? You've seen that in the past, some little things are like false promises, but this has been great! In just the first day, the topic that resonated with me the most was AI storytelling. I feel like we need to be masters of telling our own story and sometimes it's so difficult to get out of your head as a business owner and see, okay, what do our customers want to know about us and how can we clearly define that message in our ads, copyright, our website, everything?
Glynis Tao
So tell me quickly about your brand. What makes it stand out?
Hellen Harbilas
Well, my story in general started off with me hating candles. I absolutely did not like candles on the market. It gave me headaches and nausea. You know how you're like opening up a candle in the store and you're like, oh my god, I can't even breathe. That's what inspired me to start Hellen's Boutique. I wanted a candle that not only looked really good, but also smelled really good and that you can actually be like this is such a relaxing fragrance and not a boom in your face. So what makes this different is like our premium soy wax and our premium fragrance oils. Our premium fragrance oils just means that there's less allergens than a typical fragrance oil. They irritate your sinuses less. So, I think that powered with the craftsmanship and our decor part of the business makes us stand out. I call it a little pretty air freshener. That's what I call it.
Glynis Tao
Yeah, well air fresheners can be so bad for you.
Hellen Harbilas
Absolutely.
Glynis Tao
Right? Because they're all made of chemicals and toxins. So did you start the business because you identified there was sort of that need in the market?
Hellen Harbilas
Absolutely. Yeah. Everybody was telling me, I don't really like the candles at like, I'm not going to start naming name brands. You know who I'm talking about, but very strong scented candles. There was definitely like a need. There's a lot of people like me and I was literally like my biggest tester. Like if they didn't work with my sinuses and my allergies, I wouldn't produce it.
Glynis Tao
And so how did you get started in ecommerce?
Hellen Harbilas
Learning like everybody else, I actually started my business in the pandemic, so I had to learn everything from scratch. I researched all of the products and I made my website. I just started and did my website by myself. I had learned everything from A to Z on how to even program the site and enter some code. I actually did something where I chose a theme that was no longer available on Shopify and I only found that out like last year. I had a full mental breakdown, by the way. I was like, oh my goodness, I have to change the entire theme. I hadn't updated my website because when you're doing your own coding and your own theme, you absolutely have to update your website every year so you can match Shopify and then you can bring out the most updated tools. I wasn't doing that.
So now I learned my lesson. just choose the default theme and I add what I need.
Glynis Tao
So a lot of learning in the beginning.
Hellen Harbilas
Absolutely and consistent learning throughout the years. I don't think you're ever done changing your website as a business owner.
Glynis Tao
Always a work in progress.
Hellen Harbilas
Every day you're like, oh my God. I don't really like this button and I don't really like this section, this doesn't make sense. And you gotta change it over and over again.
Glynis Tao
That's usually how it is, I find. So in those early days building a brand, what marketing strategy did you use to grow your business?
Hellen Harbilas
Man, like it was a tough time, right? Like I was literally in the midst of a pandemic and I think my first strategy was to get my products out there to the people in-person so they can see it, test the market to see if people will buy it and validate that product.
I spent three months researching and then all of a sudden I was just walking in my neighborhood in Toronto and I saw people popping up there and it was September 2021. And people were doing markets outside of Arta Gallery, actually. Arta Gallery was doing this thing where they would take small businesses and allow them to pop up in front of their store outside. Like a little outdoor flea market. I saw that and I was like, you know what? I have nothing to lose. Let me go ask. And then they accepted me. And then my first ever pop up was October 10th, 2021. That was almost four years ago today. I tested the market and I remember making like $500 on one day, just popping up.
I think, pop-ups was, at least in my first year of growth, was getting my product in front of customers, getting my website, using the Etsy platform, and getting into the wholesale portion of that, but that was only like the second year of business where we started to grow even further. Then we were able to concentrate a little bit more on the growth part, less on the product and testing part.
Glynis Tao
And so you've been doing it for five years now?
Hellen Harbilas
Four years, yes.
Glynis Tao
Started during pandemic time. So in a crowded e-commerce space, what do you think builds the most trust with customers today? Is it reviews, brand story, or something else?
Hellen Harbilas
Well, as we are learning with this conference and I know that you've gone to several sessions, I think it's an all-encompassing of all of those three plus a few more things. I feel like as a business owner, you realize that when you're posting content online, sometimes you have to post the funny things and you have to be your own influencer of your business, but that doesn't really generate sales. So you need to find a way to tell your story, but also attract the right audience. And that's what I struggle with the most too—getting my content out to the right people. I've had videos gone viral, but they went viral to other business owners, which is great. But the other business owners are not really my target audience. So it's like, how do you align your content with the things that actually are gonna get your customers to buy it?
And then obviously, the website is important and SEO. Everybody talks about SEO. It's something that I still try to… I think all business owners keep trying to master it every day—trying to try to change things on their website. But I think the most important thing about SEO is you have to be focused on actually, not putting keywords into your site. More like, tell me about your product and be specific and descriptive and focus on the actual problem that you're solving rather than just say like, like this is just a soy candle. Okay, well, if you type in soy candles on Google, guess what comes up? A lot of stuff that's not my stuff. So you have to be very specific and that's also what I'm trying to work on as well. They’re kind of marketed in a way, as you saw, my candles are more like decorative pieces. So kind of like switching the narrative a bit and more of like a decorative sales pitch than an actual candle that you can burn because everybody tells me that my candles are too pretty to burn. And that's not the problem. I want you to burn it, but you don't have to burn it. It's a pretty air freshener.
Glynis Tao
They look like little sculptures, right?
Hellen Harbilas
Yeah. And they still freshen your space.
Glynis Tao
You can display them like pieces of art. You don't have to burn them.
Hellen Harbilas
I actually want them to burn it. It's better for me. I always want more money. Anyways, it's an investment piece. You have to invest in your home and the way that it looks. It will literally last forever. One of my first customers who ever bought from me in October, had bought like October 2021, had bought a candle from me and she says that it still smells now to this day. So four years later. I mean, lasts forever. Literally.
Glynis Tao
Yeah. Well, that is a good investment. If you had to place one big bet for the future of e-commerce, whether it's a channel, technology or strategy, what would it be? Sort of like, where are we headed?
Hellen Harbilas
Hmm. Where are we headed? A very scary place. That's what I'm thinking of. First off, I just did a session. They went through like the SEO and like the future of SEO and then they said that basically maybe at one point or another, we won't necessarily need Google to pop up. People are going to be using a lot of AI. So you're going to go to ChatGPT and you're going to say, give me the best of the best candles with the most amazing reviews and all of that. And then that's going to be able to search all the websites. If you don't come up, you basically don't exist and that kind of freaked me out because I'm like, man, that's freaky.
Glynis Tao
It is. Like, what’s the point of your website? Yeah, because you put so much work into it and you don't even show up. I think this is a big challenge for a lot of brands right now and there's a lot of confusion I think around what AI search is and how it works and most importantly how do you make your brand come up in AI search. Interesting conversations. I think it's a hot topic which I would like to continue and have more conversations around.
Hellen Harbilas
Absolutely.
Glynis Tao
But anyways, let me just ask you if you weren't doing this business now, what would you be doing?
Hellen Harbilas
Oh my goodness. Well, part of me could tell you that I would be living in Paris, France, going to school to become a fashion designer. That's one of my other dreams as well. So I've always wanted to be a fashion designer ever since I was like seven years old, I started drawing and stuff. And this year I recently got a chance to live there for two months and I did take my sewing classes over there and I absolutely loved it. And I would be like, yeah, absolutely. I would totally come here and live here in a heartbeat and start working on this slowly. That's part of my side projects as well is like working on developing that art person, that fashion person on the other side. So that's what I would be doing. I would be in Paris.
Glynis Tao
We should just trade lives because I was working in fashion for a little while. That was sort of my past life working in the fashion industry. Now I switched to more tech, I guess. But yeah, that sounds like fun. And so thank you so much.
Hellen Harbilas
Thank you.
Glynis Tao
For being here and sharing your story and insights with us on the special edition live at Ecom North.
Hellen Harbilas
Thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure.
Glynis Tao
For our listeners, if you like to learn more about Hellen’s business, we'll have the links in the show notes. And if you want to share your social handles as well to the audience.
Hellen Harbilas
My Instagram is hellens.boutique with two L's for Hellens and then it's just hellensboutique.com or hellensboutique on TikTok.
Glynis Tao
Awesome! Thank you so much!
Hellen Harbilas
Thank you for having me!
Glynis Tao
For our listeners, if you'd like to learn more about all the founders interviewed in today's podcast, we'll have the links in the show notes.
And if you're a founder who's been listening and thinking about how to get more visibility and sales through SEO, especially with all the changes happening in search right now, you can connect directly with me at hello@glynistao.com or you can DM me on Instagram at glynistao.
Thanks again for tuning in. Hopefully you enjoyed these conversations with incredible founders from Ecom North.
Thank you so much for tuning in. You can find me on Instagram at glynistao and my website glynistao.com. Please subscribe to Chase Your Dreams podcast if you haven't already. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with others who you think this may help. Lastly, it would be great if you left a rating and review for our podcast. See you next time!
Jeanel Alvarado, founder of RETAILBOSS, has built her career helping entrepreneurs navigate the fast-changing world of retail. In this episode, she shares how she went from starting a blog to building a global consulting firm, and the lessons you can apply to your own business. You’ll hear how consumer habits are shifting, what AI means for the future of online shopping, and why blogging and content creation are still powerful tools for building authority. By the end, you’ll walk away with practical steps to help you future-proof your retail business and stay competitive in a market that never stops evolving.
About Jeanel Alvarado
Jeanel Alvarado is a visionary leader in media and retail and the founder and CEO of RETAILBOSS, a platform she launched in 2011. With over 15 years in the retail industry, Jeanel has grown Retail Boss from a blog into an internationally recognized retail publication and consulting firm trusted by professionals around the world. She's also the founder and head of marketing at Stylebuy a B2B wholesale platform and fashion label offering women's, men's, kids' wear, and lifestyle products.
Through her partnership with Glow, Jeanel hosts, manages, and produces fashion events and influencer gifting experiences. Her career includes serving as senior managing director at the School of Retailing at the University of Alberta School of Business, where she led consulting projects for major brands like Victoria's Secret, Tiffany & Co., and various real estate firms that own shopping centers and malls.
Leverage AI search early to capture new customer discovery.
Learn core e-commerce metrics to guide smarter decisions.
Blog consistently to build trust and credibility.
Optimize product pages for long-tail, detailed searches.
Create content that proves your expertise versus making claims.
Understand and embrace AI tools to stay ahead of competitors.
Use physical retail to deliver memorable brand experiences.
Pivot quickly when trends, tech, or consumer behavior shifts.
Interview themes
How did blogging spark a career in retail strategy?
Jeanel’s journey began with a simple blog where she shared case studies, brand opinions, and retail observations while still in school. What started as commentary on campaigns and retail experiences soon caught the attention of boutique owners, who began reaching out for her advice. This opened the door to consulting work and planted the seed for Retail Boss. Jeanel shows how putting your ideas into the world—through blogging or content—can establish credibility and lead to unexpected opportunities.
What were the biggest challenges of early e-commerce?
Launching her first e-commerce business in the mid-2010s came with steep learning curves. Platforms like Shopify were still in their infancy, offering limited themes and straightforward functionality at a low subscription cost (which was beneficial to new entrepreneurs) but, analytics, and bounce rates were foreign concepts. Jeanel explains that the hardest part wasn’t getting a site online, but learning to optimize and maintain it—figuring out why visitors weren’t converting, testing photos and pricing, and using data to improve performance.
How has retail marketing shifted over the past decade?
Ten years ago, physical retail was the main priority, and e-commerce often existed as a side channel. Today, the order is reversed—new brands typically launch online first, with physical stores establishing later on or not at all. Jeanel highlights this dramatic shift, noting that foot traffic in malls is no longer a reliable driver, and direct-to-consumer websites have become the first point of contact for most shoppers. The retail playbook has been flipped, and businesses must adapt their strategies to meet customers where they are.
Why is adapting early to new technology a “must” for e-commerce success?
From e-commerce to AI, Jeanel sees a clear pattern: many brands resist change at first, only to realize later that the new technology has become essential. Just as e-commerce went from optional to unavoidable, she believes AI will soon be a core sales funnel. Platforms like Google and Perplexity are positioning themselves as the next discovery engines, reclaiming ground once dominated by social media. Her advice: don’t wait until it’s mainstream—adapt early so your brand stays competitive.
How is Google AI changing search and shopping?
According to Jeanel, search behavior has permanently shifted. Consumers no longer search only by brand names—they’re using detailed long-tail queries like “100% cotton eco-friendly shirt.” Google’s AI shopping features now surface products that match these specifics, often allowing customers to purchase directly through Google without visiting a brand’s website. For retailers, this means product pages must be more descriptive, optimized with clear details, and ready for discovery outside their own storefronts.
Why is blogging still a powerful tool?
Despite the perception that blogging is outdated, Jeanel argues it’s more relevant than ever—just reimagined in new formats like video blogs, influencer roundups, and Substack newsletters. Blogs remain a top source of data for AI search engines, helping establish expertise, credibility, and trust. For brands, blogging isn’t about random updates—it’s about documenting your story, showcasing authority, and giving AI and consumers alike the proof points they need to trust your brand.
What role does credibility play in standing out online?
Jeanel believes that in today’s retail market, success isn’t about what you claim—it’s about what your work proves. Whether through case studies, blog content, or consistent publishing, letting your work “do the work for you” is the fastest way to build authority. She emphasizes that consumers and AI alike look for evidence: brand backstories, sustainability practices, certifications, and partnerships. Sharing this information consistently builds the trust that drives visibility and conversions.
What advice does Jeanel give to new entrepreneurs?
Her first piece of advice: learn the basics yourself before outsourcing. You don’t need to be an SEO or e-commerce expert, but understanding the fundamentals gives you control and prevents costly mistakes. Second, be willing to pivot. The market moves quickly, and clinging to an idea that no longer works can sink a business. By staying adaptable and building a foundation of knowledge, entrepreneurs can scale more sustainably and seize new opportunities as they emerge.
Chapters
00:00 The Evolution of AI in Retail
02:47 Jeanel Alvarado's Journey in Retail
05:46 Challenges in E-commerce Development
08:45 The Shift to Online Retail
11:45 Navigating E-commerce Platforms
14:31 Adapting to Changing Marketing Landscapes
17:33 The Importance of Physical Retail Experience
20:27 The Role of Blogging in Modern Marketing
23:23 Strategies for Scaling Retail Businesses
26:15 The Impact of AI on Consumer Behavior
29:16 Future-Proofing Retail with AI
32:06 Building Credibility Through Content
35:27 Advice for Aspiring Retail Entrepreneurs
Transcript
Jeanel Alvarado
I know there are a lot of people resisting AI and it was almost the same thing with people resisting e-commerce back when e-commerce was becoming something where it's like, sure, we'll just launch a site, just to have it. AI, same thing. Some people are maybe, okay, we'll maybe tweak some things. But over time, it may become the number one funnel, right? We got to think about that. So right now we talked earlier that people discover through social media. I really think Google, as well as Perplexity, really are trying to be that they want to be it.
Social media had its run for discovering products. Google and these AI want it back. They want to be, hey, you want to discover new things? We are the place. So that is where I'm seeing things going and just how they're doing things. Because of the same thing, social media doesn't really encourage people to leave the social media app. They like people to stay there.
Google is trying to figure that out. How can we make people stay here, right? And we can feed them ads and we can feed them products that they like, and we can provide them news that they might be interested in. How can we keep them here? That is what I believe in the real behind the scenes of what really is going on here. So that's why people really need to see this as, okay, if social media is so saturated, they're just so many people dancing around, and there's just too much noise.
Where are people going to go next to discover? And I think Google AI, AI Search is really trying to capture and be that new top funnel.
Glynis Tao
Welcome to Chase Your Dreams, a podcast for fashion entrepreneurs who want to build a purposeful and profitable clothing business so they can make a living doing what they love. I'm your host, Glynis Tao, an apparel business consultant and SEO specialist with 20 years apparel industry experience. I'm also a mom to a wonderfully energetic little boy named Chase.
Today's guest is Jeanel Alvarado, a visionary leader in media and retail and the founder and CEO of Retail Boss, a platform she launched in 2011. With over 15 years in the retail industry, Jeanel has grown Retail Boss from a blog into an internationally recognized retail publication and consulting firm trusted by professionals around the world. She's also the founder and head of marketing at Stylebuy a B2B wholesale platform and fashion label offering women's, men's, kids' wear, and lifestyle products.
Through her partnership with Glow, Jeanel hosts, manages, and produces fashion events and influencer gifting experiences. Her career includes serving as senior managing director at the School of Retailing at the University of Alberta School of Business, where she led consulting projects for major brands like Victoria's Secret, Tiffany & Co., and various real estate firms that own shopping centers and malls. I'm thrilled to have her here today to talk about her entrepreneurial journey, scaling a global retail brand and navigating the future of e-commerce and AI in retail.
Welcome Jeanel, it's so nice to have you here today. Thanks for joining me on the podcast.
Jeanel Alvarado
I'm so happy to be here. Thank you so much for reaching out. I am ecstatic about this.
Glynis Tao
Great. So we had met through a mutual friend of ours, lovely Adila Cokar from Source My Garment.
Jeanel Alvarado
Adila connected us from Source My Garment, who has just an incredible wealth of knowledge on how brands can be more sustainable, or if you're not already a brand, that you can become more sustainable. So yeah, she connected us both, and I'm super glad that she did.
Glynis Tao
Yeah. And I interviewed Adila on this podcast as well a few years ago during COVID. So she offered some really great advice, but I'm actually surprised that our paths didn't cross sooner. And we share a common thread having worked in the Canadian fashion industry for so long. I'm based in Vancouver. I lived in Toronto for 15 years and you are currently based in Edmonton, right?
Jeanel Alvarado
Yes. Edmonton, Alberta, yeah.
Glynis Tao
Yay! I've been to Edmonton several times for trade shows and conventions. It's a great city. A lot of good food there actually.
Jeanel Alvarado
Yeah, we have a pretty good foodie scene, especially in the summertime. We have a lot of events like Taste of Edmonton, as well as Heritage Days. But yeah, Toronto's known for having some really good restaurants though, top of the chain.
Glynis Tao
So I feel like I've been meeting people who I swear are living parallel lives. My last interview was with Laura-Jean Bernhardson, who owned three fashion retail stores in Toronto. And she spoke about building a fashion retail business with heart and strategy. And I think your journey has a lot of parallels, especially when it comes to adapting, scaling in a changing retail market.
Jeanel Alvarado
I know. Changing almost too much. I mean, I can't think of any other industry other than retail that has been just flipped over, slam dunked so many times over this last decade here. It has been a crazy whirlwind of events.
Glynis Tao
Yeah, so much. You know, she started her business in the 90s and went up to the, I think she closed her store in Kensington Market and Queen Street around 2022 due to pandemic. But she was saying how, you know, in those early days, before the internet, she had to call her customers and tell them about new products and sales and stuff like that. So she's been through like two, two decades in retail.
So it's just amazing all the changes that have happened, but you've built a successful career as a marketer, retail strategist. Can you tell us about your background and what inspired you to start your first business?
Jeanel Alvarado
Yeah, so my background was blogging to start. So I always had an interest in fashion. I went right after high school to university and the goal was to become a fashion designer right at the time I was 17 years old. I got into school and then within the first year I realized no, sewing is not made for me. And what was also interesting is although I wasn't taking any sort of business specific courses, we were having to take economic courses because I was at the University of Alberta. So we did have to in our first year also along with fashion design classes, have to take some economic 101, 102. And that's when I learned a lot more about supply and demand, how the economy works and how much we rely on so many external factors such as the retail industry or how consumers behave in shops. And that got me really interested in the business side. And then from there, I pretty much pivoted into business and yeah, I ended up finishing. Well, I have a BCOM in marketing. And then I also have a certificate in real estate, both from the U of A. And when I was there doing real estate, it was focused mainly on commercial, so shopping centers, strip malls, all that good stuff when it comes to securing a store in physical retail.
And so how did your background and early career experiences shape the vision for Retail Boss and your other ventures?
Jeanel Alvarado
Yeah. So I had, while I was actually just finishing up that degree, I launched Style Buy. So I was already trying to do a lot more with e-commerce because we had actually gone to Toronto and we were at the Shopify head offices back when the stock price was in the forties, right? A good time to buy. And we were there. We were there in Shopify. Yeah. And you know what's funny when I was there, yeah, our tour person was like, hey, buy some Shopify stock. I'm like, okay, I'm still here in school. And yeah, that's kind of what opened my eyes to, okay, e-commerce, learned a bit what Shopify was. This was in the early days. So this is in 2015, 2016. yeah, so Style Buy was launched using Shopify back when I was in university. And so, yeah, that's just kind of how my journey started.
Prior to that, I was already blogging. I was already working also at the U of A as I started out as a senior consultant, moved up to a managing director, then a senior managing director. When I graduated, they kept me on for the school of retailing, which is just a center that was in the school of business at the time, that where we would work with retail partners to do any kind of consulting, as well as like you had mentioned, some of the real estate firms that own some of the malls like West Edmonton Mall and different malls and we're always looking for, how can they bring in more traffic and how can they diversify their retail mix of stores for it can entice people to continue shopping?
Glynis Tao
Okay, and in those early days, what problem were you most determined to solve in the retail industry?
Jeanel Alvarado
Yeah, I would say during that time, things were just becoming digital. It's so funny. And we talked about this before on an earlier call that now it is the norm for someone to have an idea and just jump into a website builder. It could be Shopify, it could be Wix and get their brand off the ground. When back in 2015, 2016, almost 10 years ago, this was not the norm. If you had an idea, you would look for a consultant or someone, right, like myself, to help you along that journey. And so during that time, we were actually just in the infancy of figuring out how these physical retailers also have an online presence. So we were mainly focused on that omni-channel.
Seeing e-commerce is just an extension of the store, similar to how the stores were just seeing social media as an extension, right? Not the main drivers. But now fast forward 10 years later, e-commerce is the main driver. Social media is the main driver. And, you know, it's the store that almost takes the backseat.
Glynis Tao
So what were some of the biggest challenges that you faced in getting your business off the ground in the beginning?
Jeanel Alvarado
Yeah, I would say in the very beginning, especially like I'm saying, Shopify only had a few tools at the time. The pro was that the pricing of the plans were a lot cheaper than they are today. The challenge was learning how this works. I mean, it's one thing to have a website builder and it's another thing similar to what Shopify and WooCommerce, which have that whole backend, right? Which is for inventory management, analytics. So I would say it was understanding and learning this new e-commerce world.
So yeah, great, we have traffic, but only half are buying. Why? Right, so figuring out and then what tools or apps can we add to fix this? Is it communication? Is it that we don't have good photos? Is it the pricing? Is it that at checkout there's something happening there or we're not, you know, we don't have an abandoned email, right, going out to kind of get that customer back.
So I think the main challenge wasn't just launching, because I think back then, for me, that was still easy. It was easy for me to get up there and do it, but it was that maintenance on, how do I utilize all this data back here? What's the bounce rate? It's just learning the whole new jargon of e-commerce that took the longest.
Yeah, and so it was really that time period I would say in the mid 2000s to 2010s right? I guess when e-comm started to take off.
Jeanel Alvarado
It was already taking off and Shopify made it where you could do it yourself, a one-man team that you could do it. So e-commerce definitely was already becoming a thing. But also like so many stores had it like big we're talking about big name stores still didn't have a robust e-commerce sites where you could order or buy. That still wasn't the norm.
Glynis Tao
Mm-hmm. And so is there one e-comm platform that you prefer over another?
Yeah, I think it really depends. There's so many in the market right now. I mean, with all this AI technology, there's places where you can just have AI make your whole site, even select what product you should sell to what market. So there's so much out there. I think Shopify was definitely the pioneer of DIY do it yourself. You don't need to hire someone. You can figure this out and do it yourself. And it was very simplified. Like I'm telling you, I was in university. I was still taking full-time classes and I was able to easily get it all started and launch on my own on a plan that was, think, you know, between the $10 a month range that handled everything. So definitely at the time Shopify was the number one, if not the only pick to do something like that without having to really learn too much of the complex things, right? What was really interesting was Shopify at the time when I got on there, they only had maybe three themes. Three or four themes that you could pick from. And you couldn't really customize them, which actually was great because you couldn't really spend time tweaking something. It was just, this is what it is, put your products on. They've already figured out that this layout works the best for mobile and desktop to convert. So they really took all that pressure off designing. So that was number one.
But now, like I said, I can't say that they're the number one. There's so many other platforms that would provide more customization. So WooCommerce would probably be one of them, which is like part of WordPress or one of the backend for WordPress. And you can completely customize and the same thing, they got apps, but that takes a bigger learning curve there, I think. But yeah, I think there's just so many things out there, but yeah, Shopify is definitely way more expensive now than it was back when I was there.
Glynis Tao
Mm-hmm they’re now maybe a couple hundred dollars a month?
Jeanel Alvarado
They are actually more expensive. Like I still have my invoices from back then and even apps were way cheaper. I think some apps that I had were maybe $2 a month. Now an app usually is $29 a month. Back then also it was in Canadian dollars. I think Shopify now has everything in US dollars. I'm not sure how they do it or they tell you in USD and now you can pay in Canadian. But again, it's substantially more expensive. And I couldn't tell you that really it's any better than what it was 10 years ago. You know, it was so simplified, get on there, get out. Now I think it's a little bit more complex. You got so many options, so many apps. I'm not sure, but again, maybe that's just their strategy to have you have 20 apps plus the plan. And then that's what, 300, 400 a month.
Glynis Tao
Shopify definitely changed the game for e-com. I had my online e-commerce store before Shopify even existed. I think I had a CS cart or something. Wasn't that great. I know Shopify would have made my life a lot easier if it was available at that time.
Jeanel Alvarado
Absolutely, yeah, it was definitely a game changer. I, like I said, they pioneered it and then I'll definitely give them that.
Glynis Tao
Yeah. And so how have you seen the retail marketing landscape change since you started and how have you adapted or even have seen your clients adapt?
Jeanel Alvarado
Yeah, I would say huge, huge. It's just not something that is even negotiable to have you, if you're launching a brand. Now it's like a website first. I mean, store location is like last, if even on their radar for starting a brand or selling products at all. So that's a huge change. Back then the only, you know, clients that particularly we had were people who already had physical stores or boutiques, right? So they already had a physical presence or they were selling in retailers, right? And their main website was primarily just for those wholesale customers. So it was more like you can log in once you're a customer. Yeah, right. So the brands didn't really have even their own sites. So yeah, now looking into today, it's like a no brainer. I mean, D2C is the first thing, having your own online storefront is the first thought. So when I do have clients that reach out, it's always they have an e-commerce store or it's like, that's usually the priority here. And then everything else is kind of secondary, which is just so different from how it was just 10 years ago. It is a totally different industry.
The biggest thing has just been a lot of the retailers, I think, scaling down or making smaller, making their larger retail footprints, not in terms of having multiple stores, but having smaller stores, right? Because it's not that many people are walking the stores as much as they used to, right? And malls aren't as big a draw factor as they used to for customers. So you can't just, hey, I'm the new Forever 21, you know in this era and we're going to open up a bunch of stores and malls and people are just going to buy because people are always there. Those days are over. That was the playbook, right? 10 years ago, you can attest.
Glynis Tao
I can, yeah. I know, I guess different generations too. And who is shopping online compared to, you know, in the malls, if you walk into a mall these days, you kind of look around and scan the demographic, right? And it gives you an idea as to who's still shopping at shopping malls. And I guess everyone else is online. So I feel like I'm sort of that in-between. Still enjoy the mall experience. And seeing, especially when it comes to clothing, I still like the experience of feeling, feeling and trying it on as opposed to ordering something online. I mean, I've ordered online, but usually after I've gone into the store and have seen it or tried it on and I know for sure and I'm like, maybe I can find a better price online. And then, yeah, but I don't know, I guess I'm still sort of that old fashioned person who still likes the physical experience.
Jeanel Alvarado
Yeah. And I would say, you know, I also like the physical experience too, because here's the thing. I ordered online multiple times and it never looks like how it looks on the model. Right? The sizing also, you never really know what the size is. You're a medium here, you're a small here. There's no consistency across all those e-commerce brands. But what I'm saying is the main differentiation here is that brands used to let, like I said look for high traffic areas. They would launch into these stores, in these malls, in these strip centers that already have the traffic. And they would just rely on that to build up the brand. And those customers, it would be their first touch point, right? You would learn about a brand because it was there in the mall. Okay, the gap. And then that's your first experience. You can touch, you can feel like you said then you can go online, kind of have, you know what the sizing is, you have better ideas, and then now you can kind of go there.
But now, it's almost reversed. A lot of these Gen Z or these younger people, they're finding out about these brands first through social media, right? Social media is number one for that kind of first touch point for a lot of this next generation. then, also myself now, right? So you learn about so many new brands through social media, and then your next touch point is their website, right? You get their website, and then probably your first purchase is through the website, because they don't have physical stores. And then so it's almost like the store, the touching and being in that brand's physical presence would be the last thing, or if they ever do choose to do that. So that's almost like what I'm saying, the new launch strategy is flipped completely.
Glynis Tao
Just going back to what you're saying about when stores used to be like, if they're in a mall, then they just rely on foot traffic, right? It's like instant visibility, though even having to do much marketing, they can just completely rely on that. But now being an online world, I think it's a whole different ball game because you're up against so much competition. And so I think that's sort of where these retailers struggle. You know, say if they were formerly just brick and mortar stores, physical locations. I have a client actually who owns a physical store in Toronto selling sporting apparel and she moved online to e-commerce and she was like, I don't know what to do here. Like you're going to have to help me with this because you know, I'm used to selling physical, selling in-person selling, you know, this whole e-comm thing is like new to me. So is that kind of what you're seeing out there as well?
Jeanel Alvarado
Absolutely, absolutely. And the friend you just messaged is probably my ideal client, right? For me, because there's a lot of now the new generations are doing a lot of that DIY. So they're actually learning a lot more about that e-commerce side of things and how to manage it themselves, opposed to, like you said, those existing brands who have storefronts or boutiques anywhere. Launching e-commerce is a full-time job in itself.
And that's a whole other arm of the business. It's not just, you know, okay, once in a while, this is an ongoing, everyday, customer is emailing all the things. So it's really something that a lot of those physical stores struggled with. And yes, they did need outside assistance to carry that on. They cannot shut their doors down to be working on a website all day. So that was the perfect moment. And that's a lot of what we were doing, even when I worked at the center, helping with figuring out their e-commerce strategy, digital strategy, and understanding how to connect, you know, store inventory and e-commerce inventory, or should you have separate inventory? Or if you have multiple stores, how do you manage all the inventory?
And again, I'll give Shopify that because one of my clients that I work with, and she has a boutique in Edmonton, she uses Shopify and it does a really good job with the POS because they also have POS systems that can connect to your e-commerce store. So you can see, right, you can see sales across all the stores. So she knows this location in the north side made X amount today. This one in the south side made this amount today. And this is how much we made on e-commerce, which helps them prioritize their marketing budget because they got to kind of now split that up between an extra source there. And that's the thing that you just mentioned. Yeah, how do I sell online? And again, now you need a new budget just for that.
Glynis Tao
Yeah, so for this particular client, they are using Shopify as their POS. So I can see on the back end analytics, their POS sales from the store and their e-comm sales. And when she reached out to me, she was like, my goal is to increase e-comm sales, increase my online sales. I got the retail business down, right? Like, how do I increase my e-comm side of the business. And I'm like, you know what, this is a huge opportunity here for you because like with your physical store, you're serving the local GTA Toronto market, right? And she both built the name for herself and people know about her as the go to for this sportswear apparel. But I'm like, with the e-comm store, you have this opportunity to serve so many other people across the country, in the States, like, you know, she gets customers buying from the US. This is huge. I think now more retailers are beginning to understand that and realize just how important the e-comm, DTC side of their business is. But I think they still need help with it.
Jeanel Alvarado
Absolutely, they need help. It's new, either they've got to outsource it or they need to hire an in-house team for it. Like we just chatted about, it's no longer just something to pass time to just put up a little flyer now and then. That's not what the website is anymore.
Glynis Tao
Yeah, exactly. Or the thought of like, if we build it, they will come. If you just launch the site that magically the customers will just appear.
Jeanel Alvarado
Yeah, no, unfortunately not. Yeah, so no, it's definitely something that is a whole, and I think we're still at the beginning of even like jobs because it's funny because I'll be out here and I think right now it's been a good time for people like us to get a lot of new clients because it's still not something that's really taught in school. So it's not like every year there's an influx of people who are master e-commerce or SEO experts like yourself.
There's, it's not taught, right? So those roles are still being outsourced. They're looking for experts, looking for an external agency or team or like you said, consultant or strategist to take on either giving them a game plan or managing that day to day and helping them get to those goals. Because there's just not anything right now. And that's being, I think, taught across the board to feed into this new department that's needed for probably every single store, every single store across the world.
Glynis Tao
Yeah. And if you're a small boutique owner, you definitely will not have a marketing department that's going to be able to handle this.
Jeanel Alvarado
But they don't know marketing is different from e-commerce. When I finished school, I knew lots about marketing, lots about real estate. Like I said, with my business, my style buy, that one was me learning hands-on e-commerce. That's what I'm telling you. That was a huge learning curve because the most we learned in business school is like, e-commerce is a website, end of story. Right? There's nothing really else here for you. It's when you actually have to start using these platforms where you're like, what is bounce rate? What's organic traffic? What's this traffic paid? How do I get paid? Right? They're just so many things that you find out and what's abandonment rate? So many things. Bounce rate. They're just too many things.
And again, unless you have the time to DIY and learn it all yourself. But if you're someone who's already managing something successful, it's better to just bring in an expert or a team to externally to manage that because they can easily take what you've done if you're successful physically. It's so much easier to be successful online because one of the biggest drawbacks online is poor customer service, right? Having tested out the product.
So maybe what they're selling isn't the best, but you've already tested all these products. So even online, they can go in with just their best sellers and start tapping into different markets.
Glynis Tao
I just want to go back to your business for a second. You had said that you set up Style Buy when you were just finishing your degree and then, so that was your first e-comm business.
Jeanel Alvarado
I was already working on it while I was in school. Yes.
Glynis Tao
And then Retail Boss came after that.
Jeanel Alvarado
So I was already blogging. So I already had Retail Boss before that. So Retail Boss was the first, but that was just for blogging. And then also I was getting booked to do consulting and local boutiques, which prior I was just blogging specifically related to what I was learning in school. So many interesting things. And I felt like this is so interesting. I might as well blog about it. So I would just have random case analysis that I would do about random brands or opinions on brand campaigns. And I would post it and I was on, I think it was blogger.com at the time. And so I was just always there. And from there, I had a local boutique reach out to me and they're like, I really like what you said about how stores should have more experience in store. Cause I was, I wrote up something related to Build-A-Bear and how they've done something so interesting that brings kids in all the time and they focus on, know, if you look at the stats, how many babies or kids have birthdays every month? And that's just, they really tapped into that. And she was trying to figure out, that's so interesting that you wrote about that. Do you help, you know, people do that or figure out ways to do that? And at the time I didn’t, I just had the blog, but I said, sure, I don't mind coming down and seeing what you're doing and see if I have any ideas. And that's kind of how it pushed me into this could maybe be a career for myself to provide advice or solutions based on what I've learned.
Glynis Tao
Yeah. So Retail Boss has become a leading platform for retail professionals. Would you be able to share some of the key strategies that helped you scale that business?
Jeanel Alvarado
Yeah. So Retail Boss specifically. And it's funny because I also, now that I've successfully built up, guess what you would call a media platform. I also help people who are looking to do the same. I actually just had a contract that I was almost done with her media website and they actually also sell services in a whole different industry. What I would say is I just kind of, I just was just bombarded with just so many requests just from a few blogs. And that's when I realized, this is a great way to gain credibility. And one of the strategies or one of my takeaways for people today, I would definitely tell them is something that was told to me and it was let your work do the work for you. Right? So like let your work network for you.
Maybe one day you're thinking, I wish I could get more sales or I wish I could get more of this. Always think about, okay, how can I make my work work for me? So if I want to gain attention, I need to put in some work. So that's what I always say. And with that, yeah, we just kind of upped the content. We upped what we were doing. We upped the insights, right? In the beginning, when you give insights, it does seem interesting to everybody, but then it comes to the point where it's just like, we've heard this before. You always got to up it to something else, correlate benchmarks. So I always have to try to be ahead of the industry. So right now, a lot of our content is related to AI tools or what kind of AI solutions can help you grow your brand. That's what keeps us interesting. It's not just about a strategy that's the oldest test of time. People want this strategy today and who's using it and who's doing it well.
And because if it's timely, relevant and successful right now, let me pivot and do it right now because any kind of strategy, it might just be a blimp. It might just be a moment in time where that's working because what I learned in economics, there's so many external factors and timing is huge with any kind of trend you're going to jump in. And I'm sure you know this with social media, think about TikTok.
The brands that got on TikTok when TikTok was hot, when TikTok, people buying on TikTok and those live feeds, they really gained momentum there.
Glynis Tao
I guess that's all what you're saying in terms of the brands who adapt quickly are the ones that will see success. I love what you said. Let your work do the work for you.
Jeanel Alvarado
Don't be out there trying to convince anyone. Do the work. If you say, hey, it could be anything. I do SEO really well. Okay. Well, show me something that you do on a constant basis that's working. Okay. For me, I could be like, yeah, well, I have scaled a publication that gets between 40 to a hundred thousand visitors a month. It's like it's done. The work speaks for itself. And then you yourself, like with the case studies and, I've taken this company to this.
People need to see the work. It's no longer, I don't think it's ever been about saying that you're good at something. People see you're good at it. That's when they contact you.
Glynis Tao
Yeah, I think it's about building credibility and trust for your brand. And this really leads into this next hot topic discussion. So you have written a blog about Google's new AI-powered shopping tools. What do you see as the biggest implications for our e-commerce brands?
Jeanel Alvarado
Yes, so many things. And we talked about this on an earlier call as well. My main takeaway, because I just love giving just main takeaways, right before I just write it down, is that the search, Google search, and just the behavior of how customers search is changing. And it's changing forever. It's not going to go back ever to how people used to search. The way people are searching is changing.
And especially in particular here, what we're talking about is searching for products. All right. So before people would search online again, a lot of the times when people would search, it was very brand heavy. Those days are over because people are open to discovering new brands online. So that's a pro that that's a good, a good thing. So before people would have really searched like, you know, pink shirts, like things like that.
But people now are searching for very specific long tail keywords, things like cotton, sustainable brand, eco-friendly, or 100% cotton, eco-friendly. People are writing, getting very long with what they're searching instead of just a GAP sweatshirt, which was probably back in our days, right? Was just a GAP this, Victoria's Secret, you know, top, Juicy Couture tracksuit. It was very brand what it is, brand what it is. This new generation is looking. They're discoverers. They don't really put brand this. If they did, they would just search the brand or go to their social media and click the link. So I think that's something that's really interesting. So even with putting out what your product is, you want to be as descriptive as possible. I think that's a huge thing. And we were chatting about even eco brands being very specific.
If it is a hundred percent cotton, you have to have you know, maybe even logos or photos or like have something more that encompasses that, whether somebody searches and then clicks images and then an image of that and then says a hundred percent cotton is part of the image. So you're going to want to get more descriptive with even photos. You're going to want to have more things next to that photo. And that needs to be something that would rank higher because people are looking and discovering and they want something specific. And if they land on you, they're most likely to buy because they already put in exactly what they want and you were recommended. So I think that's one good takeaway.
And the other thing I talked about was that, you know what, your e-commerce store may not be as important as it was before, right? Because Google is now encouraging when they will give that recommendation, they want you to appear in the shopping section. So they want to pull that product, right? So that same example, searching for a cotton, 100% cotton eco-friendly sustainable brand, UK based, who knows what long thing they sent. Want them to click shopping and have those products there to select from. And right through there, they call it a agentic, I believe, checkout where they want you to just do your whole checkout process right there through Google. So that means the customer never goes to your site.
And I truly believe that's based on what I mentioned earlier. It's just the way that customers are searching today. People are searching to discover something new and Google wants to provide them that because they're not really too focused on the brand name as much as they were in the past. And that's why we've seen a lot of luxury brands struggling a bit here because people are interested in no label brands or what they call quiet luxury, right? Because it's like brand-less, but it checks what I'm looking for. I just want 100% alpaca blazer. Give it to me. And Google wants to do that. So the other takeaway is you might want to invest less on your e-commerce, making it look pretty, at least on the aesthetic, because people may never actually reach there in the future.
Glynis Tao
Yeah, it's so true. So you're a hundred percent right in terms of how search behavior is changing and how Google's offering these new features like virtual try on, agentic checkout. People may not even need to go to the site anymore to make a purchase. They can do comparison shop, look at prices right there in Google.
Jeanel Alvarado
Yes, you know what you just brought up a third thing is exactly that. Google also wants to be the person to do all those price comparisons. You can do your pricing alerts. And again, it's actually encouraging you as a brand or a retailer to have regular sales, right? And not fake sales, because a lot of brands have gotten trouble over this past couple years here, right? With the class action lawsuits regarding them having fake sales where they just always are 50% off. Have you heard of those?
So a lot of online brands have gotten in trouble from always having 50% off, right? But the product is never regular. So it's always $20. When you launch it today, it's 50% off, which is a false advertising. So some have gotten in trouble. And you know what? Actually by Google allowing price alerts, it almost makes it where you actually would have to have a regular price and then go to a sale price to benefit from that feature where customers online can get pricing alerts from your brand when you decrease the price by 10%, 20%, et cetera.
Glynis Tao
So let me ask you this with Google encouraging price drops. How can brands protect their value and avoid getting stuck in a race to the bottom?
Jeanel Alvarado
Yeah, I think they need to embrace where things are going. So a lot to do with AI is going to be determining who is going to be ranking and outranking who, right? So to be competitive, it's to understand how they are going to be ranking. So I know Google did put out some information for retailers on how they can show up and be the ones most recommended. Again, it was making sure having the best photography you possibly can, right? So make sure you have great photography, number one. Number two was well thought out product descriptions. Do not just rely on your brand name. So many brands rely on their name, but they will begin to be outranked by those who are more specific in matching with what people are searching for in these long tail keywords.
Number three would be pricing. Make sure to have a pricing where you do have a plan for maybe in two weeks, you're going to decrease the price by maybe 10%. If that inventory is still there, you're going to decrease it by another 40%, you know, a couple of weeks or months after that. Google likes those things because they want to encourage people to again, sign up for the price alerts to see when your product does go on sale.
So those are the top three things. And then the other four, like I mentioned, is people may never make it to your site. So try to make it as clear as possible on those individual product pages, everything that customer needs to know. If you are a sustainable brand, that needs to be in every product description, not just about the product, but that you are a sustainable brand. You might even want to put where you're based. You might even want to put that this is woman founded.
Whatever keywords that you think people may be searching for you need to put that on the product page because the new AI isn't looking to pull all the information from your website. They are just trying to match people with a specific product.
Glynis Tao
Yeah and I just want to highlight this article that you wrote on your Retail Boss website, Strategies for Online Retailers and E-commerce. You list these four points and what retailers can do to future-proof their business.
Jeanel Alvarado
For AI. AI search, AI shopping.
Glynis Tao
And one thing I'm actually looking into incorporating within my SEO strategy is optimizing for Google Merchant Center and organic shopping. So I'm just wondering, like, are you starting to consult, like, work with your clients through this transition and sort of what's happening right now to sort of help them to evolve, adapt to the changing search landscape right now?
Jeanel Alvarado
Yes. There are tons of just like it's so interesting because e-commerce is almost becoming like the app store or it's like once you're a part of it you got to keep updating. This is how Google shopping is just like you just mentioned a key point Google's Merch Center, you can sign up your brand and your site on there and then that's how it'll feed into being in that Google shopping area so again, you have to keep up with that information or enlist a team, right?
Yourself or myself or any other expert to help you navigate that because just like any update, you need to then adjust to fit their terms and conditions. We're still early in this AI search. So what works today to get your products and say that yes, they're okay to be on here may change tomorrow. And then you're so busy in your business that weeks and weeks go by.
And maybe you have been taken off the Merch Center or you're way low in the rankings because you haven't kept up with the updates on what you need to have on there and what needs to be taken off those individual pages or needs to be on your site. I do know one client I work with and it was something as easy as not having a privacy policy, why their site wasn't showing up, right? Because there are certain things that you need to have on your site to be pulled up in these listings.
Glynis Tao
Exactly. I think it's the eligibility factors and what Google looks for to the requirements to make sure that you're eligible to firstly have your products listed in the Google shopping, but also making sure that your product titles and descriptions are also up to date. Like you said, also mentioning, you know, if you're a sustainable brand, talk about it, right? Mention the certifications that you have because right now it's really about building that trust and credibility aspect, not only with your customers, but also with AI search. Because I've just been watching so many of these, you know, video webinars and stuff on the latest AI playbook, how it's working, how it works, how AI search engines pick up your content and how they display it and show it to people.
It really matters, like the type of content that you put out there. And so, yeah, it's just such a, it's a hot topic and it's something that is just changing so quickly, almost every day now, something new is coming up. So having to keep up with that, even as professionals like ourselves, it's even hard to stay on top of it, but I feel that it's important just as my job to do that. But yeah, to me, I think emphasizing on building the trust factor with AI search and your customers gone are the days of, you know, trying to just rank for keywords and get a lot of traffic.
It's nowadays that people are having these conversations within the search engines, like within chat, GPT, Perplexity, they're asking complex questions. So I think the better that you're able to answer their questions and solve people's problems and pain points, the better you're able to build that trust with them. And hence, you know, with AI search picking up your content as well and showing it.
Jeanel Alvarado
Absolutely, are spot on. Everything you said was just genius. Really on point. I couldn't agree more with what you're saying, yeah. I know there are a lot of people resisting AI and it was almost the same thing with people resisting e-commerce back when, you know, e-commerce was becoming something where it's like, sure, we'll just launch a site, just to have it. AI, same thing. Some people are maybe, okay, we'll maybe tweak some things.
But over time, it may become the number one funnel, right? We gotta think about that. So right now, we talked earlier that people discover through social media. I really think Google, as well as, like you just mentioned, Perplexity, which is backed by Nvidia, who recently keep trying to put in their bid to buy Google. Really, they are trying to be that they wanna be it. Social media had its run for discovering products. Google and these AI want it back.
They want to be, hey, you want to discover new things? We are the place. So that is where I'm seeing things going and just how they're doing things. Because same thing, social media doesn't really encourage people to leave the social media app, right? It doesn't really encourage them. They like people to stay there. Google is trying to figure that out. How can we make people stay here, right? And we can feed them ads and we can feed them products that they like and we can provide them news that they might be interested in. How can we keep them here? That is what I believe in the real behind the scenes of what really is going on here.
So that's why people really need to see this as, okay, if social media is so saturated and there's just so many people dancing around and there's just too much noise, where are people gonna go next to discover? And I think Google AI, AI search is really trying to capture and be that new top funnel.
Glynis Tao
When we had our first chat, we had both talked about blogging and how content marketing would help for brands to stand out against fast fashion competitors and that sort of thing. I think we're both sort of in that same, like we agree that blogging is still important, would you say?
Jeanel Alvarado
Yes. And it's funny because everyone that I talk to you think that blogging is dead. No, it is not dead. Maybe blogging about your cat, what your cat ate today is dead. Okay. Maybe that's substack. You can maybe get a, right, get a small niche of people interested in that day to day. That sort of blogging is what people think about when they think blogging
No, the same thing as how the retail industry changed. Blogging has changed from what it was. So the new blogging is really that influencer marketing hub, right? So even when you see nowadays, when you see a content creator, an Instagram girl, girly, let's say, and she is talking about her 10 best picks, that's what used to be a blog. You would blog your top 10 picks, right? But now people showcase their top 10 picks. I think it's about how you think of blogging and the essence of blogging is not dead. It's just, there's new forms of how we are sending out these blogs. Either it's a video, you can still have the blog post, right? And because people want to be able to click and easily find the source, it could also be you just linking to your Amazon store, but in the essence of blogging.
People are blogging all the time. They're blogging where they traveled. You can call it vlogging, right? It's all of these new words, but really blogging is not dead. It is what people are most interested in right now. And if you check out Substack, that's growing and that's still written blogging. So we got video blogging. We got these influencers who are posting all the time, which are a form of blogging. So that is not dead.
Blogging is just really just when you take experiences or things that you like, you kind of package it up and then you send it out there. And if people want to know, well, where was that hotel stay at? Where was that product purchased? So blogging is still here.
And I think you had mentioned a great point in where Google does like to prioritize brands and retailers who are being talked about, who are part of these conversations. So remember what I said, let your work work for you. Blogging is the number one way you can do this. If you want to be known as a hundred percent sustainable brand, you can start by having blog posts that clearly make you the expert in sustainability, right? You can have multiple blog posts and then you can reform those blog written posts into vlogs. You can then take that and make it into social media posts. You can even hire an influencer who then can go down those tips and maybe make a more influencer type video with your clothing, right?
Now it's more tied to the clothing, but also making sure they talk about how you are a sustainable brand based in XYZ that they love to shop. So it all feeds into the same thing. All that chatter is what helps Google say, Hey, yeah, these people don't just say they're sustainable. Other people say they're sustainable, right? Their blogs also create them more as an expert. And that's the number one thing with more written blogs, right? Create that more expertise.
Glynis Tao
Yeah, I was just listening to a recent webinar about this and they were mentioning like where AI gets their data from and like number one was blogs. So that still definitely justifies the importance of it. And not just like, you're not just writing content for the sake of content, but you're creating helpful, original content that establishes your expertise, authoritativeness, trustworthiness, right? So you're building all this credibility and establishing yourself as the expert in your industry or niche.
Jeanel Alvarado
Yes. And I also have another saying that someone told me a while ago and a couple of years ago, and it resonates with this completely. It says, tell your story before somebody else does something along those lines. And the point is if you don't tell your story, right. And that could be the story of yourself, the story of your brand, the story of whatever it is, like your campaign. Yeah, you put out a campaign, but why? That could be a blog post. That's blogging.
Blogging is telling, giving all the insights, right? So people need to document, it's documentation, proof, authority. So just like you're saying, and that saying is really good because it's almost like if you don't tell your story or what's behind your campaign, you leave it open to too much interpretation as to what you are trying to get at, which just doesn't work. And you're going to just end up getting canceled. Cancelled culture is huge.
But how about instead of just putting out new visuals, you have more in-depth blog, more information of what, okay, what was the whole backdrop of this? The behind the scenes, the why did you pick this location, this, this, this. All of that feeds into all that information that you're talking about, that credibility. And then you're telling the real story about your brand because nowadays if people never get to your website, how are they learning about you?
And you were just spot on once again. What if somebody never goes to your site, sees something on social media, and the first thing that they search, and the AI search is, and this is usually something that's very high search, is like, who owns X brand? And let's say you don't even have anything about yourself. It'll just be unknown. They already don't trust you. Already lost. What about, what is this brand legit?
Yeah, you already lost. So what will AI pull? They have an online site, unknown. So yes, just like you say, you're gonna have to feed it constantly for then when somebody searches, is this legit? go, right? They're polling from the blog. yes, this brand was launched and this is this. They recently had two campaigns featuring this, blah, blah, blah. Their philosophy is based on XYZ. They recently did a collaboration with some not-for-profit, da da da da da da da event is actually happening next week. All that information it will not have if you're not blogging.
Glynis Tao
Yeah, actually everything that you just said is 100%. I totally agree with it and this is such great advice. I think it's a great takeaway for people who are listening right now, just in terms of how the content that you create will also help you with your visibility and being found, right? So definitely blogging, we both agree that blogging is not dead.
Jeanel Alvarado
Not dead at all. It is reimagined in tons of different formats to get the same message across.
Glynis Tao
Yeah. And so before we wrap up here, I just wanted to end with some advice from you. So for entrepreneurs who are listening today and want to break into retail or scale their business, what would be one or two pieces of advice you'd give them?
Jeanel Alvarado
Yeah. So one of my biggest pieces of advice would be to make sure that it's something that you can consistently do something that you are able to do yourself. I think you have to have that DIY mentality at least to start. And then of course you can outsource, but your own, your business will be only as good as what you know.
So I do see a lot of brands or retailers kind of just jump in without really knowing much and maybe they pay people who know what they're doing and then yeah, they're up and then they're just sinking. It's like you got the boat in the water and then now the first tide and now you're under the water. So take the time to learn what you're getting yourself into and every little piece of, you don't need to know, be the SEO expert, but you need to know the basics. You need to understand the basics. So know what you're getting yourself into because e-commerce has so many different layers and then same with content marketing, because there's ways you could do it wrong. And you can get penalized by Google if you're just, you know, getting on these automated.
There's so many things and we'll leave that for another day, but don't try to shortcut to start, learn the basics. And then if anything, you can then, once you have those frameworks, you can then outsource people to do it the way that you've determined would be best for your business. Because just like we talked about blogs, you yourself should figure out exactly the tone, the audience, the type of blogging you want, you should have that kind of a guideline first before you hire someone to start putting out a lot of content.
So I would definitely challenge anybody to kind of just get maybe a template of each, then they can go ahead and outsource. And then the other piece of advice is be okay with pivoting. Like I said, the market is always changing, so be okay to pivot. My most recent client, just like we were just talking about, I've been helping them also with a little bit of SEO, but SEO is not the core of what I do, right? What I know, but it's a new skill in my toolbox, right? So that is something that I'm like, okay, yeah, I could definitely do some minor adjustments here and get you on the right track with your SEO a bit. But I think people in whatever they're in, whether they want to also maybe do an e-commerce store or they want to do physical retail because we all also help people who just want to do physical retail.
And I also help brands who just want to get into stores and sell wholesale who don't really aren't, aren't interested in doing all this marketing and branding for G2C. They rather do that or even try to like private label. Yeah. My, like I said, the second piece of advice there would just be, be able to be adaptable. You might have an idea that you go in and then it just isn't a fit and don't keep trying to make the peg fit. Right. Get a new peg, get a new idea. It's the quickest way to success.
Glynis Tao
Those are wonderful, amazing advice. I love it. Is there anything that you would like to share with the audience? Any events that you would like to share?
Jeanel Alvarado
We love to partner with different events. I guess if there's any people interested in beauty, we are partnering again with the Beauty Connect LA, which is happening in November for anybody who may be interested. It's an event that happens all the time. So if you miss this one, get on it for next year. And that's a great event. If you are a beauty brand looking to get into beauty retailers, they have a lot of the like, you know, top merchandise and buyers there.
And yeah, it's just like you get a lot of great information and then also trends. And then even if you're starting out, it can be good because they have these breakout rooms and sessions that are really great to help you figure out how to take your product or launch your products successfully, either on e-commerce and then also in store. So that's something that we're doing. And then, yeah, so just keep up with us. Follow Retail Boss across any social media platform. Find us at retailboss.co and if you have an interesting story about your brand, feel free to reach out.
Glynis Tao
Mm-hmm. And where can people find you if they want to get in touch with you?
Jeanel Alvarado
Yeah. So the best way to reach out is to send us an email. If you're interested in being featured on our publication, you can reach out at media@retailboss.co. If you're interested in working with me professionally, you can just go to hello at JeanelAlberto.com or just find me at JeanelAlverado.com. Do keep in mind for clients right now, we do look for clients who are making over 1 million in revenue. Okay. But like I said, we also have tons of events on Retail Boss. So if you're making less than that, jump over to retailboss.co, keep up with the news. We've got so many tidbits and yeah, that's how best to reach out and work with me. I'm always looking for people. Right now we're actually looking for somebody on social media.
Glynis Tao
Thank you so much Jeanel for sharing your journey and expertise with us today.
In this conversation, Laura-Jean Bernhardson shares her experience as an entrepreneur in the fashion industry, from starting a knitwear business to opening multiple retail stores. You will learn about the benefits of building systems, mindset shifts that will help you grow with creativity and confidence, and ways to make your brand memorable. You will also hear about Laura-Jean’s pivot from retail brick and mortar to business coaching. Get ready to learn how to run your fashion retail business the right way—through Laura’s lessons from decades in the industry.
About Laura-Jean Bernhardson
Laura-Jean Bernhardson has been an entrepreneur since 1994, starting with a handmade knitwear business that she grew into a seven-figure fashion design and retail company. Her boutiques, Fresh Collective, were known for carrying small batch artisanal clothing and accessories by local designers, including her own lines, Fresh Baked Goods, and Palette. But Laura-Jean didn't stop at fashion. She also co-founded a licensed daycare business that she ran successfully for over a decade. Over the years, her passion for mentoring other women entrepreneurs evolved into a full-time coaching business. Now, she helps founders grow businesses with heart, passion, and profit without burning out. And she's also on a mission to build a life that feels fun, flowy, and creatively fulfilling.
Use creative, low-cost branding to stand out with unique details and memorable experiences.
Scale with systems by documenting processes, delegating decisions, and removing bottlenecks.
Turn setbacks into wins by staying flexible and pivoting quickly.
Collaborate strategically to share resources, cut costs, and create complementary products.
Know your ideal customer through market research and tailor everything to their needs.
Treat business like design by bringing creativity into sales, marketing, and operations.
Hire expert help early to avoid mistakes and speed up growth.
Push past fears to sell with confidence and connect authentically.
Interview themes
How can creative, low-cost branding make you stand out?
Laura-Jean believes you don’t need a massive marketing budget to get noticed—you need a memorable brand experience. From playful “knitting queen” branding to custom Shrinky Dink buttons, she shares how small, unique details made her products unforgettable. These touches not only set her apart from competitors but created talking points that customers shared, driving organic word-of-mouth growth.
Why are systems the key to scaling without burnout?
For years, Laura-Jean ran her fashion retail business with everything in her head—approving every purchase, making every decision. It wasn’t until she embraced systems that she was able to scale to seven figures. By documenting processes, delegating authority, and creating clear roles, she freed herself from being the bottleneck. She credits this shift with not only growing revenue, but also giving her more freedom to focus on strategy instead of constant firefighting.
How do you turn setbacks into growth opportunities?
Retail brought plenty of challenges—slow seasons, unexpected weather events, even losing leases. Laura-Jean learned to see each obstacle as a chance to adapt. Whether it was shifting her business model, phasing out what wasn’t working, or bringing in new product lines, her willingness to pivot quickly kept the business resilient. She explains how staying flexible allowed her to navigate decades of industry change.
What are the benefits of strategic collaboration?
Early in her career, Laura-Jean joined forces with fellow designer Kingi Carpenter to open a shared retail space. This partnership evolved into a collective model where designers contributed rent and staffing in exchange for selling space. The approach lowered overhead, created a built-in community, and offered customers a diverse mix of products. Laura-Jean shares how the right collaborations can spark creativity, reduce costs, and strengthen your market position.
Why is knowing your ideal customer non-negotiable?
Laura-Jean admits she didn’t always get this right—her early designs reflected her personal style, not the needs of her paying customers. Over time, she learned to research her audience, understand their lifestyle, and design pieces they’d actually wear. She explains how market research helped her adjust sizing, color palettes, and price points to match what her customers valued most.
How can you bring creativity into every part of business?
While she started as a designer, Laura-Jean discovered that applying her creativity to marketing, merchandising, and sales made her business stronger. She reframed entrepreneurship as an art form—where every customer interaction, product display, and email campaign was a design project in its own right. This mindset not only made the work more enjoyable but also led to more original and impactful business strategies.
When should you invest in expert help?
Laura-Jean’s turning point came when she hired her first coach after reading The E-Myth. She quickly saw how outside expertise could shortcut trial-and-error and help her build a more sustainable business. Today, she encourages founders to bring in expert help earlier—whether it’s for marketing, operations, or financial planning—so they can avoid costly mistakes and accelerate growth.
How do you push past fear to grow your business?
Selling didn’t come naturally to Laura-Jean. Over time, she learned that selling was simply about building relationships and showing genuine enthusiasm for her work. She explains how confronting personal hangups—whether it’s fear of rejection or perfectionism—opens the door to authentic connection and stronger sales.
Chapters
00:00 The Journey of Entrepreneurship Begins
04:57 Building a Fashion Brand and Store
09:49 Marketing Strategies in a Pre-Digital Era
14:51 Navigating Retail Challenges
19:58 The Importance of Systems in Business
23:07 Transitioning to Coaching
30:26 Key Strategies for Growth
50:18 Advice for Aspiring Entrepreneurs
Transcript
Laura-Jean Bernhardson
Like anyone can start a business, it's so fantastic. And yeah, it is great and anybody can start a business, but don't expect it to be easy, I guess. Don't expect it to challenge your sense of yourself. I think that would be the most important thing. If you can deal with yourself and your blocks and hangups, then you can learn all the rest of the stuff. You just have to be able to be ready to embark on the journey.
Glynis Tao
Welcome to Chase Your Dreams, a podcast for fashion entrepreneurs who want to build a purposeful and profitable clothing business so they can make a living doing what they love. I'm your host, Glynis Tao, an apparel business consultant and SEO specialist with 20 years apparel industry experience. I'm also a mom to a wonderfully energetic little boy named Chase.
Laura-Jean Bernhardson has been an entrepreneur since 1994, starting with a handmade knitwear business that she grew into a seven-figure fashion design and retail company. Her boutiques, Fresh Collective, were known for carrying small batch artisanal clothing and accessories by local designers, including her own lines, Fresh Baked Goods, and Palette. But Laura-Jean didn't stop at fashion. She also co-founded a licensed daycare business that she ran successfully for over a decade.
Over the years, her passion for mentoring other women entrepreneurs evolved into a full-time coaching business. Now, she helps founders grow businesses with heart, passion, and profit without burning out. And she's also on a mission to build a life that feels fun, flowy, and creatively fulfilling.
Welcome, Laura Jean. It's so nice to have you here today. Thanks for joining me on the podcast.
Laura-Jean Bernhardson
Thank you so much, it's great to be here.
Glynis Tao
So I have to start with a little personal connection. Before I ever became an SEO and business strategist, I lived in Toronto for over 15 years. I went to fashion school at Ryerson University, which is now known as TMU. And I actually remember shopping at one of your stores, your store in Kensington Market. It's so fun to have this full circle moment with you. And for those who aren't familiar, can you take us back to those early days and what inspired you to open your first store?
Laura-Jean Bernhardson
My history is so long that it's hard to know where to start. But I opened my first store in Kensington in 1998. And that was about three and a half years into my knitwear business. So my knitwear business was called Fresh Bake Goods. And I started on $600 that I borrowed from my roommate at the time and $200 worth of yarn that I put on my credit card. And I just started knitting and putting sweaters on consignment at different stores and really building the business one sweater at a time.
So for the first, before I opened the store, I was working on getting in other stores, starting out with consignment, putting them on consignment and then getting wholesale orders. But I'd have my, I'd take my samples and people could choose the yarns they wanted, which was actually really good because they could be like, we've got these dresses coming in, so we'll order sweaters.
Like it opened up a huge range of colors for them and stuff so they could coordinate their boutiques and everything else. But I ended up opening my store in Kensington. I would say there were sort of two reasons that really spurred me into it. One is I was really getting sick of wholesale. So wholesale included a lot of, you know, like just production and then packing boxes and then trying to collect on the, so calling up stores and being like, hi, you owe me $873.
And I didn't like that part. So I decided that if I had a store, then I'd have a home base and I could meet customers one-on-one and sort of get more enjoyment, I guess, out of the creative process and use my materials more wisely and so on. I often had to order more of something to fill an order, even though I had, you know, tons of other things available that I could have been selling off or whatever. So for me, it was a good shift in terms of, I guess, energy, like just my own personal way I wanted to spend my time and yeah, having a home base.
And the second thing that I think sort of pushed me over, although it's like such ancient history, it was 1998, but I had been in a relationship for about three years with a guy and he broke up with me and I just decided like, that's it, I'm gonna open the store. Like it was one of those things I had been wishing for someday, et cetera. And I went out looking for spaces on a Monday and by Thursday I had signed the lease at Kensington.
So I remember peeking in the window and thinking, oh yeah, I can make this work. And it was like a tiny space. The rent was only $650 too, back then, which was incredibly cheap, even for Toronto standards. When I went out looking, I had a budget in mind of $1500, but I found this place $650 inclusive and that became my little Kensington shop for probably about 20 years. I closed it in or 22, I can't do the math, but I closed it at the end of 2019.
Glynis Tao
That's the history. And you didn't just stop at one location. You grew to three retail stores in Toronto. Was that part of a grand plan or did the opportunity just present itself over time?
Laura-Jean Bernhardson
I guess over time, I actually, there was a fourth store in there. For a stint, I had a store in, I think about four years. So I opened the Kensington store and then I did a second store in Yorkville within a year, like a year later, along with Peach Berserk. So that was Kingi Carpenter is another Toronto designer. And I had worked for her when I started and she does silkscreen designs on clothing and stuff. We, first I started out working for her and we became friends and it was a great
What do you call it? Like a peek into what it takes to have a business, to run a store, et cetera. And a lot of it scared me actually. I was like, this is expensive and there's a lot to worry about. And, you know, there's hydro bills and all those things, but thinking, you know, seeing her model and seeing that she was able to do it, I thought, well, if she can do it, I can do it. So we were friends and she had her store on Queen street. And I had my store on Kensington and we decided to open a second store together in Yorkville. And we called it Peachy Fresh.
So was half and half, half her stuff and half mine. But no surprise, we were spread very thin with having the second store that we were running. So we sort of thought like, how can we make this work where it's not so much work and expense for us? And we thought, we considered things like approaching, we knew a lot of designers. So we thought, what if we got like a third business partner or whatever?
But somewhere along the line, we kind of came up with this idea of, I don't know, we kind of, we're calling it junior business partners or roommates at the time, but what it evolved into was like a collectively run store where designers could join us and work one day a week in the store and pay a portion of the rent. So we kind of developed, I remember the first designer who moved in, she had a glass case from Ikea and we were like, okay, great, let's put it at the end of the cash desk. And I think we charged her a hundred dollars a month rent.
Laura-Jean Bernhardson
And she worked on Tuesdays and it was just like, my God, like one day we don't have to worry about. And I remember handing her over the key and going, good luck, call me if you have any problems. And over time, as more and more of these people joined and so on, it became more of an official thing where it was like, this is now, you know, we started calling it a collective and it became this, you know, there were seven designers and seven days of the week were covered and it was like, this works. So that was kind of the model that I took to Queen Street when I opened Fresh Collective.
Glynis Tao
Okay, so what was the retail landscape like in Toronto when you first started and how did you stand out in such a competitive market?
Laura-Jean Bernhardson
Well, it's so funny I would say it was a hundred times less competitive than now. It was just such a different time. Like this was pre internet pre you know digital photography social media all that stuff. So how did I stand out? I guess what was great is that I had built up a clientele. So because I had done those three and a half years of doing street markets and the one of a kind show. And I did those still when I had the store too, because those were great outreach. But I do remember like the first couple of days after I opened the store, I started to feel panicked because it was not just people who didn't just flow into your store and spend money. It's like nerve wracking when you open a store.
So I literally went out and did posters. I remember going to Kinko's and photocopying posters and put them all over Kensington market. And I'm like, Fresh Baked Goods has a new store in Kensington. And I, you know, it was like that. It was like old fashioned, you know, getting the word out. But I also had collected up phone numbers because that's how we did things. That's how Gen X did things in those days. So I had had phone numbers of people who had ordered sweaters or different things or just wanted to be alerted when there were sales or whatever. When I opened the store, I spent days calling people going, hi, I just wanted to let you know that I've opened a store and you know, blah, blah, blah, and gave them the address and everything. And then we'd also use that phone list for sales and things too.
Glynis Tao
That was all the old school techniques.
Laura-Jean Bernhardson
Yeah, without the internet at that time, you have to be creative in other ways. It's kind of mind boggling. And I wish, you know, I had some of my early brochures. I wish I had them like right available because they just look hilarious now. But I would literally take pictures with a film camera, develop them at their drugstore like we did in those days, cut them out with scissors and glue them to a piece of paper to make your brochure. And we did have Kinkos. There was color photocopying. So I would take them to Kinkos and photocopy them and then give those out. You know, it's like wild.
Glynis Tao
Mm-hmm. Yeah, and I think I must have picked up one of your brochures or postcards because I saw that post that you made recently. This really brings back memories now.
Laura-Jean Bernhardson
Yeah, I guess also now that you're mentioning that catalog, I might have it here. Am I going to be lucky enough? Let's see. I think another thing that worked out really well by accident, like you asked, was this all part of a master plan? No, not at all. I knew nothing about business. I didn't even know how to get a job. So I was a fine arts major. I'd studied photography and I moved to Toronto because I went to school in Montreal. I moved to Toronto and I'm like, I had no real intention of like, I'm going to start a job and, you know, start a business in fashion because it was so insane. Like how would I do that? But I had been making things and selling them as a teenager. I had a bikini business in high school and I made jewelry and stuff like that. So it was, I kind of had this like, you can make things and sell them kind of mentality. But another thing that really stood out was the knitting queen.
So that's the cover of the catalog. This is a catalog that fell apart, sadly. So there you can see some of the styles and stuff. But I did this kind of shtick of like, I'm Laura Jean the knitting queen. So you can see I've got a yarn wig and I'm wearing a crown. And then I called the assistants who worked in my shop, and who helped with the production, I called them knitting princesses. And that knitting queen thing became so sticky, like years after I stopped knitting, people would be like, wait, aren't you Laura Jean the knitting queen?
So I think that's you know, I was unexpectedly getting these lessons in business in terms of branding and in terms of making yourself stand out and in terms, yeah, another thing. Now you're making me realize how much that made me stand out. Another thing I did was this at the back of the catalog and I made handmade buttons. So my buttons were shaped like a cat face or a flower or like all of these different things that made it really unique. And in my shop, you could even pick out, I had those little drawers where you store nails and things. I had buttons where people could pick out their buttons. And so that became a sales lesson of mine where I would see someone trying on a sweater and if I told them about the buttons at the right moment, their decision would switch from, should I get this sweater to, which buttons should I pick? So I realized that was another thing that ended up being like, this makes it really unique. And suddenly they're fishing through, trying to find all the blue cats that are gonna make their sweater look perfect.
Or we had letter buttons so they could get their name. So yeah, even though it was a totally different time, the basics still apply. It's the exact same thing of like making your business unique, your unique value proposition, your branding that stands out, that's catchy, that makes people excited. All of that stuff, it's all the same.
Glynis Tao
Yeah, yeah. I think that really is what made you different, unique, and made you stand out at the time because I still remember that show up and those colorful sweaters and it just felt, it was different at the time. It was like, you know, all kind of like the sort of more darker, subdued type of looking things that were out there, but yours just really had color, you know.
Laura-Jean Bernhardson
And you you've hit on something when you said what's the state of the fashion industry in general, is that I did notice it creeping in over the years that there was a, when I started, I feel like it was a real, what do call it, like antidote, I guess, to sort of the normal boring mainstream stuff that was out there. But bit by bit, fast fashion came in. So we're talking about the mid-90s when I started, which some people watching this will be like, not even born yet or in kindergarten or something.
But so it's like a really long span of time. And in that time, something happened with like retail laws where more and more, you know, American stores or international stores could come in. So H&M, Old Navy, Zara, like those were all things that didn't exist back in the nineties when I started. I don't know exactly what year they came in, but over the 2000s, it just became more and more and more availability of fast fashion, guess like riskier moves like fast fashion allowed the fashion that was out there to be more different and to be more, you know, I remember when I would start seeing when I first started hearing about H&M and I'd see someone in dress, I'd be like, that's a cute dress thinking that it had to be a vintage find because it was so unique looking. And they'd be like, oh, I got it for like $39 at H&M. And I'd be like, what, what is this H&M place? So I feel like that was one major shift that happened where it was like, then you could get cute things or bright colored things or different looking things more easily. And then that just became more more and more and more.
Glynis Tao
And that just kind of eventually flooded the market with just so much stuff and how we ended up where we are right now. Over consumption, over production. But that's another conversation for another day. But let me just go back to you were running multiple stores, not a small feat. What were some of the biggest operational or financial challenges that you faced during that time?
Laura-Jean Bernhardson
Well, it's hard to even be able to fit them all into this podcast, but no surprise, the biggest one was cash flow. So Q1 is brutal in retail. So January, February, March should be the time of just hoping that we can get through till whatever comes after March, April and May.
May was typically a good month. Like May and December were the good months for, you know, spring shopping and Christmas. But then weather always became a problem. So I remember one year I was sitting there, like looking at the sales, looking at the numbers and thinking, we have to have a really good Christmas this year. And I'm thinking, okay, well, as long as there isn't like, you know, some crazy ice storm or whatever, it should be fine. We've got two weekends to go. And of course, before Christmas. So there was always that feeling of like, and of course that was the year that there was a gigantic ice storm and power went out and everybody was stranded everywhere. You know, so it was just a total wash. Like both of the weekends were horrible before Christmas and you know, the whole nine yards. So that, I guess like the biggest challenge of retail is the high rent and high expenses. So when I had the collective model, which was what I started on, the advantage was, you know, that it kind of had this steady cushion of keeping the staffing managed and the rent managed.
But there were other problems with that, of course, where it was like dealing with designers like dropping out or dealing with just the whole thing or even planning product was another thing that became sticky is that we could end up with a whole store full of, let's say, just brown skirts or whatever, or whatever the trend was that year and nothing to go with them necessarily, or just kind of nothing, like no variety. So the limitations of the sort of collective model, what do you say? It's like at a certain point, I don't even remember how many years I operated with that model, probably 10-ish in terms of fresh collective, like the fresh collective brand. But then I started sort of phasing that out and introducing more where we bought clothes. So we started carrying lines like yoga jeans or different Canadian lines, Matt & Nat bags, and then another bag line which I forgot the name, Pixie Mood.
So we started bringing in different products so we could control more the inventory and the selection and really make better customer service, like a better and consistent customer service experience for the customers. So I guess it was kind of like that collective model, I would say was really necessary to get started. And it was great and it was fun and it had all kinds of great things, but we hit limitations and it drove me crazy to have customers come in wanting things that we just didn't have or couldn't make available due to that model. So then that became a shift of like hiring more professional retail managers and putting in systems and buying stock and continuing some consignment, some different models with different people, but just kind of mixing it up more.
Glynis Tao
So maybe to go with that question, what worked for you, would you say, what really helped you to grow, scale that business and be able to have this longevity for over 20 years in retail? It's not easy, right?
Laura-Jean Bernhardson
It's not.
Glynis Tao
Yeah. Maybe what you could tell us is sort of.
Laura-Jean Bernhardson
Yeah I say like one particular thing worked because I feel like there are so many things worked at the time. You know, like the collective model worked to get it started and got me connected with all these designers and brought a whole bunch of energy and you know, all that stuff. So that worked amazingly. I guess nothing works perfectly, right? And then, but what really allowed it to grow was putting systems in and really for me, it was a big shift between sort of my small business and a company. And so when the systems, and that took like a long time, you know, building those systems and documenting them and training people on them and having them really just flow throughout the whole business. But it allowed me to not be the bottleneck anymore.
So people didn't have to come to me and be like, prior to that, my small business, everything lived in my head. So it was like, can we buy this fabric for the, you know, for the clothing line? Sure. Can we do, you know, we need a new stapler for Kensington. Okay, I'll add it to my list or go buy one. I've approved it or whatever. It just was way, it was all me. And I, of course at the time, didn't really know how to do and how to make it anything else.
But then I read the book, the E-Myth, the E-Myth Revisited, subtitled Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It. And that book talks about really building your small business into a company. Like it described me perfectly as the sort of frantic business owner who was running around doing everything. If I got hit by a bus, the business was gone. The step of adding the systems and creating all of that stuff, including an org chart, different positions, we really created a company flow to it where people had their jobs and it was understood what they could make decisions on or not. We had meetings to review the things, you know, all that stuff. So that made it run a lot smoother. If there was one thing that made a difference, that made a difference. I couldn't have got to a seven figure business without that.
Glynis Tao
Okay. And so did you have help with, you know, putting the system together or was it just sort of this moment after you read the book, the E-Myth, and then you got the idea to like, my gosh, you know, I can't be doing everything myself. I'm going to have to put a system in place. Like, did you hire anybody, like a consultant or anybody to help you with that?
Laura-Jean Bernhardson
Yep, I did, actually, well, after I read the E-Myth book, then I did hire a coach from E-Myth worldwide, like they have a program. So I did that for about six months and I cried most of the time through it because I was like, I think I was 17 years into my business at that point. And I just felt like, God, I've been doing things so chaotically and I could have, I could have like, there was a better way and I just didn't know about it.
And so it really just felt like, my God, this sort of, yeah, just, guess regret that I didn't do it sooner. So then I really understood the value of coaching and expertise and so on. And so over time I've hired different coaches for different reasons or different, or I take a course on like, you know, marketing or, know, whatever. I'm always looking to build something that's like, whether it's self-improvement for myself to be a better entrepreneur, or it's something to build into the business or whatever. There's just kind of always room for expert help, basically. I just saw the difference of like, can struggle through things on my own, or I can hire someone who knows how to do this. And then I know how to do it. It's just night and day.
Glynis Tao
Saves you a whole lot of time and headaches in the end, right? So looking back, is there one lesson from retail ownership that you think that every entrepreneur should hear or know about?
Laura-Jean Bernhardson
Well, I don't know if there's one exactly. Since we're talking about systems, I would definitely say systems. And I would definitely say remaining flexible, like always being able to, you know, deal with the shifting circumstances, whatever that is, if the industry is changing or weather or any of those things. I think a big misconception about retail is that you just sit in the store and wait for customers to come. And it's just not that at all.
The key to succeeding is being constantly busy and working on making sure those customers come in. So whether it's while you're there, you're sending out emails to your customer base and letting them know their favorite brand just came in or whatever, right? You just have to figure out how to make the most of your time and drive the business forward. You just cannot be passive.
Glynis Tao
Okay. So from that, I got the importance of these three things, having systems in place, being flexible, having flexibility to pivot or evolve depending on what is happening in the economic or political landscape. And then also being able to stay top of mind to your customers and communicating with them through various channels, emails, I guess.
So let's just talk about your pivot to coaching now. What inspired you to transition from having a retail store to being a fashion or a business coach now?
Laura-Jean Bernhardson
I feel like it's funny because I resisted the business part in the early days and I felt like I'm not a business person. I just want to do my creative stuff. And I would dream. I'm sure every, every creative person dreams about somebody like a business minded person who's just going to take control of the business side. And then you can just do your creative fun stuff or whatever. So that was sort of my dream for a long time that some businessy person would rescue me. And all that time I was learning about business because I had to to survive.
Also very early on, I got into a women's entrepreneurship program, which was really helpful too. So like, yeah, for sure over time, it was like always learning, always trying to find some new, you know, new stuff to, you know, roll into the business and make it stronger. Okay, so pre pandemic 2019, I actually had five brick and mortar business locations. So I had three locations of my fashion boutiques. And then I had the daycare, which was a co-ownership with the woman who founded it. And I got into that because my son was, just very briefly, I got into that because my son was one of the first clients there, one of the first kids. The woman who started it started it for her own kids. And then she was running it as a side project because she had a full-time job. She was finding it hard to get it up and going. And I was one of the parents. So I was like, she was talking, you know, we got to know each other and stuff. And she was like, yeah, I'm really struggling, blah, blah. And I'm like, I think I could help you.
So we talked about it and I became her partner. So we just did, we did it 50-50 and I took everything I had learned from, you know, retail stores and branding and fashion business, all that stuff, and poured it into the daycare. That was a really good lesson in realizing how transferable the skills are. And I kind of got, at that moment, I kind of got, this is my trade. Like I have a trade where I know how businesses are structured, small businesses, and I know the personalities and I know the pitfalls.
And I started to really kind of look at where I can guide people. And I would get calls from people going like, I love your stores. You know, can you, I want to open something like that somewhere, you know, wherever, San Francisco, Nova Scotia, like these different people would reach out to me. And I remember the first time I said, actually, yes, I can help you. Definitely. I do, I do that, you know, as a thing or whatever. Obviously I worded it better, but I said, you know, and I charge $85 an hour. And she goes, that's fine.
And at that time I just thought, this is insane. I might've said I charge $2 million now, you know? I just couldn't believe what she was like, that's fine. And so I met with her and she just picked my brain. I gave her advice, whatever. Like it wasn't any kind of formal coaching situation, but I was like, I'm getting paid for this. And I really had a love for, know, anytime one of my friends or whatever would be like thinking of opening a business, I'd be all over them like, I'll help you.
I just loved it. I love teaching. I love passing on what I know. I loved just the whole thing. I would get so excited. And I was doing that a lot with the designers who were joining me because I wanted them to stick around and pay their rent and continue in that collective concept. If their stuff wasn't selling, they would just be like, you know, I'm going to drop out and they'd give their one month's notice and leave.
Two things combined, I just loved it. I love giving advice. I love meddling in other people's business. And so it was really fun for me to say, I think if you made some smaller earrings or you had something at a different price point, just all of the different kinds of strategy for them of product development, branding, know, everything. So then I started, so then I kind of made it an official part of the stores where I had monthly meetings and then I had one-on-one business coaching sessions with them. So that started around like early 2000s. And I was doing it as part of the Fresh Collective package. If you join us, you get this sort of, so it kind of became like a little bit of an incubator, like an incubator for fashion designer entrepreneurs, I guess you could say, in a retail environment.
So I don't remember what year it was I started expanding beyond that. But, you know, a good 10, 13 years ago or something, I was like I think I could just help others, I had helped other kinds of businesses through my friends or, you know, just ad hoc, whatever. But to make it official and be like, I'm hanging out a shingle, this is it, I'm a business coach now. And I put it out there and started networking and just building up a clientele and hosting events and talking to people. And I had it in the back of my mind that it was like, this is the next thing for me because retail is like seven days a week, you know?
It was great when I was in my twenties and thirties, but for now going into the future, I want less overhead. I want to not worry about, you know, the window smashing in the middle of the night at the store. Like all of that stuff. It's just, you know, this is such a freer and easier kind of thing. So back to 2019, I had five brick and mortar businesses, three boutiques, the daycare, and another business that was in startup mode, which was going to be like a wellness place like with, you know, different practitioners and whatever. And it all just went kaboom.
In 2020, well, we lost the lease on the daycare and can't just move a daycare. And then with Fresh Collective just kind of honestly in a decline, it was just 2017 was a good year. 2018 was like 2019 was like, and I was like 2020 has to be a turnaround year or I'm out. And we all know what happened to 2020. So I just pulled the plug in like, I'm not saying I just pulled the plug. It was stressful. It was hard emotionally, but you know, had everything, all five places were closed. And I remember picking things out of my Google calendar going like that life is over. Like all of these pre-scheduled events that I had that were all about living that workaholic lifestyle just disappeared from my calendar. And I'm like, wow, now what do I create? So that's kind of what brought me here.
Glynis Tao
Yeah. Wow. Thank you for sharing that. And yeah, we all know what happened in 2020 and we just want to forget about it. Put all of that behind us as if it never happened. It had affected so many businesses and some, you know, rose from it and just thrived and came out stronger. And unfortunately, yeah, we also lost some businesses along the way which was really sad and unfortunate. And yeah, being at retail is like just hearing the stories on the news of like this retailer closing down, that retail closing down.
It's really heartbreaking. so, but fortunate for you that with the two decades of experience that you have and you built a name for yourself and you know, you mentioned that people were coming to you asking for advice and we're just like, yeah, they'll pay you $85 an hour, no problem. You could have charged more, but yeah, that must've been so validating and it's been like that, I guess, and helped you to transition to coaching now, which is great. And I think it's, it kind of almost like our two stories just kind of have very similar stories and our paths. You know, how I went from a clothing brand having a product-based business to now doing digital marketing, being a service provider now, and, you know, using my knowledge and expertise that I have to help people with that. And so it sounds like, you know, how you have that passion to help others.
Many fashion entrepreneurs dream of scaling. What key decisions or strategies allowed you to grow your fashion retail business to seven figures.
Laura-Jean Bernhardson
I mean, I feel like it's the same. It's the same that we talked about with the systems. You know, really, it's, it's something systems are something I resisted to, like when I first heard about them, because of course, I went into having my own business, because I'm like, I need to be a free butterfly, you know, I need to do my fun, cute things. And so I wanted my life to be fun and cute.
But there was this, you know, the hard side of running a business that was so, like, I don't want to say it was bad or anything, but it was just so chaotic. It was just not a business that, you know, was set up by a person in their twenties who knew nothing about business. And so my perception of what business was, like business, was, you know, that it was a, I'm thinking of like American Psycho, like Christian Bale in American Psycho, like that stereotype or Wall Street or these movies that like these eighties movies, like late eighties when it was really the culture was like, yuppies and get ahead and make money and like greed is good or whatever, like all that stuff. So I feel like that was kind of there on me because it was only a few years later. And that was sort of my impression of what business was. It was cutthroat. It was unethical. It was, you mean like all that stuff. Well, there I am thinking like, I don't want anything to do with that stuff. I just want to make my own cute stuff and sell it.
But I realized that, and I also thought it was very male, like a male thing. When I pictured a business, a smart business person, I pictured a man in a suit or with a briefcase or whatever, like just stuff that didn't even enter my world. There was a shift where when, guess, no, bit by bit I started to have successes, of course, as we do. And I started to feel like I'm getting good at this business thing. Like I think I'm getting good at this.
And so of course that gave me confidence to continue and learn more and try new things and whatever. There was, shoot, I lost my train of thought. I know what it was. This was the decision shift that really changed for me. Cause I had this image, you I went to school for fine arts and whatever, and I'm a, it was a sensitive, I'm still a sensitive person, but I've got a lot of a tougher skin now, but I was, I thought I was sort of like a wimpy sensitive person, you know, like just not cut out for this business stuff and whatever.
And there was a moment where I thought, what if I shifted my creativity to the business? Like, what if I treated the business as an art and something that could, you know, move people and connect with people and make a difference for people and really kind of put that same creative energy into driving sales and making the experience amazing for customers and doing all those things. And that really helped me shift and see that it was something I was capable of, that it was valuable, that it could be done in a way that wasn't ruthless and cutthroat and all those things. And so that really helped me to make it my own. And different things happened along the way, like for whatever reason I would, I mean, got, another thing was media in those days getting, you'd send out press releases because that would be a way to amplify your business. So I was in the Toronto Star and I was getting known for what I was doing and stuff, I would often get asked to do things about being an entrepreneur, know, different things like that.
I just remembered this, you probably don't even know this. I just, I've got my little box of pictures because I've been going through. So I co-hosted a TV show, I found this little framed picture in all my stuff. In the mid 90s, I think it was maybe 96, it was on TVO, TV Ontario, like, I guess it's kind of like PBS or something, but it was an educational show on how to have a business and run it. And it was co-hosted with Kingi Carpenter from Peach Berserk. So that was one of our wacky girl boss things we did together. And yeah, so we hosted the show and we went and interviewed people about different business models and what's working for them and blah, blah, blah.
So yeah, mean, all of that stuff kind of added up where it was like, I think I'm kind of getting good at this business thing.
Glynis Tao
I feel like you guys are just sort of ahead of this curve. I feel people are opening up a little bit more and looking to collaborate. They're more open to the idea of collaboration, sharing, but I really felt that back then in the 90s, early 2000s, everything was kind of quite really close, and people didn't want to share their trade secrets.
It seems just so serious or something. And then I felt like the two of you, I could see how you guys totally hit it off when you met because Kingi's brand is just so colorful, you know, yours as well. And these two sort of young entrepreneurs coming out with all this colorful hair and kind of like, hey, we're talking business and everything. It's just really, it's probably stood out. Yeah. Amongst like, and then you guys are, yeah, really, I think, sort of ahead of what was actually going on, you know, in that.
Laura-Jean Bernhardson
Well, think also we were just, none of this was strategic decisions of like, oh, we should do a collaboration. was like, we were broke and it was just way more fun to do things together. So collaborations were just kind of natural and her store was the first store I started selling my sweaters at. You know, I remember I liked that I brought in five and then I'd phone her every day on the landline, cause that's how we communicated in those days. I'm like, did you sell yet?
And finally, one day she called me like three days into it or whatever, and she was like, the green and purple one, so. So I mean, for me, it was definitely just the feeling of, you know, girl, girl bossing together. And so it was just more fun to do things together and stuff. And I guess maybe you don't know about this either, but when I, so when I first arrived in Toronto, I took her silkscreen workshop. That was how I got like infiltrated her world. And I just loved it. I was like, this is amazing. I was, I still screened my own stuff and whatever. But then, her place is still like this. If anybody wants to go hang out at Kingi’s place, she just had it. We called it the cult because everybody just floated there. So everybody in our little gang would show up and we'd go out for beers that night or whatever. And you know, was just this casual thing where what, whatever we'd either work for free in our spare time or work on our own projects or just hang out or whatever and it was just fun.
But so it was yes, the collaboration part. So it was just natural. It was like a natural collaboration to be, you know, figuring out things to do together or whatever, because we were right there and we had no money. So we just had to come up with creative ideas and do them. So we would send out press releases together and we were on City Line and our clothes went together really well. So that was another win where it went like a silkscreen dress of hers and then a cute little cardigan of mine over and it was amazing. But yeah, it really, that ended up being such a strong part of how I like to do business because it's just way more fun to do it with people you like and have fun doing it and stuff. So my first Toronto business, even before I started the sweaters, I did Shrinky Dink earrings based on Kingi's silkscreen designs. Did you know about that?
Glynis Tao
I love those. Yes, I think I had a little package of Smurfs ones. Yeah, color them and then you cut them out and you put them in the oven and then they shrink into this kind of hard plastic. You got it. Yeah, turn into earrings or whatever.
Laura-Jean Bernhardson
So that's what my buttons were made out of. That was sort of my secret sauce with the sweaters to have the custom made buttons all made out of Shrinky Dink. And then I did like a resin coating. I did so much product testing to get them durable and machine washable and everything. But prior to that, the Shrinky Dink, when I was working at Kingi's and I was really new there, I'd been there like a month or whatever. And I'm thinking it'd be so cool if we could do earrings or other accessories with her designs on them. And it just was like this flashback of doing Shrinky Dink, probably with Smurfs on it back in the 80s with my friend and her little sisters. And I was like, I wonder if that stuff still exists.
And I went to Lewiscraft on my bike and got some and did prototypes and brought them to her and said, I got really nervous when I showed them. So I'm like 22. And I'm like, oh, I was thinking we could make some jewelry with your prints. And then I pulled out my little prototypes. And she was like, oh my God. And I thought for a second that she was gonna go, these are my designs, how dare you? But she was like, these are amazing. I can't believe I'm seeing my drawing, she had little cocktail glasses and little like glamour gals and all these cute things. And she was like, I can't believe I'm seeing this. So that was my first thing and I made jewelry for her business for I don't know how like 10 years or something. So it's great. You just don't ever know, right? You get some ideas and then yeah, do it.
Glynis Tao
Absolutely. I think you were just kind of following your passion and you just had that in you and you're just doing what you loved, right? And having fun along the way and it so happened to be a business.
Laura-Jean Bernhardson
Yeah, I often will follow a curiosity. Like it becomes sort of an obsession where it's like, hmm, I wonder if I could make this out of that. And yeah, some of them go in the garbage. Some of them are bad prototypes and they never go anywhere. And some of them evolve into a business that lasts for decades.
Glynis Tao
So for someone who's listening today and is running a fashion brand or retail store, boutique, it wants to grow, where should they start?
Laura-Jean Bernhardson
Well, that's a tough question to answer because it's like, I don't know where they're at. You know what I mean? If they're starting from scratch, I can answer that. But if they're already running a business, then that's a little bit of a tricky one because you've got to see what's kind of where the gap is.
If you're starting out, in fact, I started, I do have a story for you. Earlier I said, I don't think I have a story like that. I have a really great success story. This is a client who was not in fashion at all, but like a service provider. So let's, don't want to give more identifying details because it might identify her or whatever. And I'm always protective of my client's privacy, of course. But so she signed up for a six month package with me. And the first thing I said was market research. I said, you have to figure out who you're serving and what their needs are, what keeps them up at night, what words they're using, everything.
And she went for it and she came back with all this information and we started building from there. So we were like, okay, so looking at these different types of people, which ones do you think are the best to, you know, go like treat as a target market, et cetera. And then from there we built and we used the words that they said in there in the market research to start creating the marketing that was going to talk directly to them. So it was things like overwhelmed and don't know where to start. Perfect. That's what we heard on those calls.
So it's just what I love about it. What I love about hindsight, like for me hindsight is 2020. I never did any market research. Are you kidding? In fact, I thought I knew better. I wanted to make the cute things that I thought were great. And then my first market research was realizing that I'm in my 20s. I'm not now in my 20s, but at the time I was in my 20s, the sweaters that I wanted to make were really bright, really cropped, really wild, know, bright. The first one that sold was lime green and purple stripes and it was cropped.
But I did start to realize that the women who are gonna spend money on this are not me. They're not, I'm broke. They're the version of me that went into a corporate job and makes money and they've been at it for 10 years and they want funky stuff to express their creativity and they've got the money to spend on it. So I had to shift my mindset and start learning what these women in there are probably in their mid thirties. What size are they? What do they like?
Do they want really short crop things? No, most of them don't. They want a sweater they can wear to work and it still looks cute. So that was my market research only dealing with why my stuff wasn't selling as well as I wanted it to.
But to love, nothing I love more than a client who comes to me from the beginning because we don't have to dismantle mistakes. We get to start fresh and start with market research, start figuring out what all of the good stuff. What are your competitors doing? What's going to make you stand out? Why are you different? Who are your clients? What's going on with them? How can you even start building a community of clients before, maybe before you even make one thing? Or if you've made a few prototypes, how can you get them out to the people to test them? So it's all about minimum viable product and doing things just smart and smooth, man. Smart and smooth. That's it's all about.
Glynis Tao
Yeah, okay, so I guess you would say your ideal client would be someone who's starting out and you are helping them from the very beginning to get the foundations in place and doing the things that you didn't even know about when you started your business.
Laura-Jean Bernhardson
Exactly, exactly. That I only learned about afterwards. Everything I learned after, like I was like, I guess that was, I remember we shifted the entire business model and everyone was freaking out and whatever. Then we learned after that, I was reading some article and I learned the term change management. And I'm like, change management would have been good here because we did it with no change. We didn't manage the change at all. We just made changes and freaked everyone out.
So yes, for me, my ideal client is someone, I go a lot on vibes. Obviously there are some businesses, if someone wants to start an airline, I'm not your coach, you know? But if you're like a service provider or a fashion maker, a jewelry designer, a photographer, and you want to set up the business structure and strategy and really pinpoint your ideal clients, it just gets me so excited because it's like, we just get the waste out of the way right away. We start from you know, start from square one and just build it all nice.
Yeah, a very ideal client for me is someone leaving corporate. Like someone, a woman in her mid thirties, let's say, who's leaving corporate, she's got a lot of skills and experience, she's ready to go for it. She's an action taker and she digs my vibe. That's pretty much my ideal client.
Glynis Tao
I just think that, you know, knowing who your ideal client is, is very important. No matter what stage of business you're in, I have some clients who have been in business for a number of years and still are not clear. Both their ideal customer, avatar, or buyer personas yet, they're still a little unclear. So I'm like, yeah, you got to go back and really think about this because it's important and it really affects everything that you do in your messaging and your marketing.
Laura-Jean Bernhardson
Mm-hmm. Yeah. And also, like, that's what I'll work on with people as well is I feel like that kind of work is hard to do in your own head. And it's hard to, it's, well, a lot. Let's just be honest. A lot of the work we do that has to do with sort of the visioning and creation of the business and whatever is very hard to do in your own head because you have no perspective on it. So for one thing, you're like dealing with all your failures. And so you're carrying that with you where we all have failures.
So when you work with an outside person, they can pull out the strengths and help you put aside the weaknesses that you're worried about, et cetera. And I can, like, when I work with a client, I'll help them define their ideal client. So, and it does take a while. Even in coaching, it took me ages and it'll change again because that's what happens as things change. Right. But I think an important part of understanding who your ideal client is, is also like who makes you the happiest and who has you perform at your best.
So for me, part of my focus on my ideal client being an action taker, being a, liking my vibe, as kind of vague as a description as that is, when I'm working with someone, it's like you and me chatting. It's like, you know, there's like a quickness to the way we talk and we're excited and there's like a high energy and stuff like that. And when I'm working with someone who's like that, it allows me to be like that. And then we get to get into this creative magic zone where we are creating magic together for their business, which is just wild and fun and where I want to be.
And I've worked with clients who aren't such a great fit and I can definitely help them and, you know, go through the steps that it takes to make a business. It's not like I dislike that or whatever. It's great, fine work and it's fun to help different kinds of people succeed. No problem. But I like the magic zone. I like it when I get to work with someone for a long period, like six months and we really get each other and I really get their personality and I'll start to go, I hear that imposter syndrome sneaking in or whatever, you know, like I know where they go to hide. I know where they think that they're, you know, gonna fail or whatever. And I get to just be with that and help them get through it. And it's just so fun and exciting for me.
Glynis Tao
Yeah, there's just so many benefits to working with somebody because, know, oftentimes if you're an entrepreneur or a solo entrepreneur, you're just kind of like left with your own thoughts and what you're saying to yourself, what's going on in your mind, but having that sort of outside perspective to help guide you and sort of like get you through some of the hurdles that you have. And oftentimes, lot of the times actually it's yourself that's holding yourself back and you're like you don't want to do certain things because it makes you feel uncomfortable like that's what I find with myself I'm like I'm gonna avoid doing you know I gotta go do some PR here but let me go find do something else and I never end up doing it.
Laura-Jean Bernhardson
It's 100%. It's funny, somebody once was talking to me about my business or whatever. She was like, three stores and whatever. And she goes, wow, you must have had to really fight to get where you are. Which, like, honestly, just struck me kind of odd to begin with was like, fight. But my first thought was only myself, only myself did I have to fight because I had so many thoughts like selling like in the early days, you know, 95 or whatever I would still work at Kingi's part-time. I think I worked two days a week or whatever. And so I'd be silk screening fabric and she'd be like, those people are looking at your sweaters. And I'd be like, well, I don't want to talk to them. Of course she wants the artist, the designer, the maker to go talk to the customers and tell them why it's special. And they're going to be like, we got to meet the designer. And I'm just thinking like, I can't even deal with this. What am I going to say to those people? And so I would just make her do it. But she started forcing me to go talk to people because it was like, you got to learn to sell or you're not going to succeed in business.
And now, my God, am I good at selling? It's just so natural. You know, it was all my hangups. It was, I had hangups about selling that weren't true. All selling is, is, you know, relationships and conversation and pointing out the, you know, it's, it's just not what I thought it was. It's not pushing crap on people they don't want. It's not that at all. It's just being friendly and great and going, yes, the purple is awesome. Why don't you try the pink one too? Look at this. And then when the time is right.
You can also change the buttons. Hmm. You want me to change the buttons for you? It just takes a few minutes to sew them on. And they're like, buttons.
Glynis Tao
There you go. See you're natural, but I guess you took you a while. Amazing. Okay, so before we go, I guess I just want to ask you one last question. If you had to boil it down to one or two pieces of advice that you would want to give to an aspiring fashion entrepreneur in 2025, what would it be?
Laura-Jean Bernhardson
I guess I would say it's fresh in my mind, but it is a huge piece of it is to get out of your own way. You know, get over your fears, get over your hangups, get help if you need it. It's also, it's a thing like running a business is a separate thing as is being a dentist and knowing how to fill a cavity or being a veterinarian or an accountant or whatever. There's something about being in business that's sort of presented or being an entrepreneur that's sort of presented as easy.
Like anyone can start a business. It's so fantastic. And yeah, it is great and anybody can start a business, but don't expect it to be easy, I guess. Expect it to challenge your sense of yourself. I think that would be the most important thing. If you can deal with yourself and your blocks and hangups, then you can learn all the rest of the stuff. You just have to be able to be ready to embark on the journey.
Glynis Tao
Do you have anything you'd like to share with the audience or perhaps anything that you are working on currently?
Laura-Jean Bernhardson
Yeah, I have lots of things I'm working on. I know it would be smarter from a business perspective to focus on one thing, but I'm of course brewing up tons of things. But I think most relevant to this audience would be I host two events a month for free that help entrepreneurs. So the first one is the Ladies Creative Collaboration Society virtual meetup. And that's the second Thursday of each month at noon Toronto time. And then the other one is Business Power Hour.
And so that's really incredible. They're both really incredible. The virtual meetup, you need to meet people. So that's a great one for entrepreneurs starting out, growing, whatever. The second one is business power hour, which is all about strategy. So it's a live Q and A free where people can show up and say, like, I'm trying to figure out this problem in my business that's got me stuck. My marketing just doesn't seem to be working. We talk it through and they get live coaching in the moment.
A recent one, I think it was the June one, I really liked this quote there, right at the end I was like, well, we were finishing up. And one of the guests was like, what'd she say? She's like, that's great, I gotta get going, because I've got so much to do this afternoon now, because she had had so many breakthroughs of things she was not able to figure out in her business. So she was like, I gotta get to work. I always promise people will leave business power hour unstuck, inspired, and ready for action in your business.
So I really invite people to come out to Business Power Hour. It's a taste of coaching too. So it's a great chance to see what coaching could offer you in a mini sort of free sample kind of way.
Glynis Tao
That's great. That sounds amazing. Where can people find you if they want to get in touch with you?
Laura-Jean Bernhardson
Well, they can always go to my website, which is laura-jean.ca and that's my coaching website. And if you have any questions or what, people can just contact me. There's a form there and yeah, that would be fantastic.
Glynis Tao
Thank you, Laura-Jean, for sharing your story with us. It's been so inspiring to hear how you've built multiple purpose-driven businesses with heart, creativity, and a deep commitment to helping others succeed.
Laura-Jean Bernhardson
Well, thanks for having me. It's been so great. Really fun chatting.
In this special “Best of Founder Stories” episode, we revisit highlights from four powerful interviews with fashion entrepreneurs Stella Carakasi, Linda Lundström, Kristi Soomer, and RozeMerie Cuevas.
If you've ever wondered what it really takes to build a fashion brand from the ground up and stay true to your values while doing it, this episode is for you. Over the past few seasons, I've had the privilege of speaking with some incredible women in fashion, designers and founders who've carved their own paths, built purpose-driven businesses, and stayed resilient through the highs and lows of entrepreneurship. In this roundup, you'll hear highlights from four powerhouse conversations.
Stella Carakasi on pivoting her business model and staying authentic as a designer. Linda Lundstrom, a Canadian fashion icon known for her ethical approach to design and manufacturing. Kristi Soomer, who built a profitable slow fashion brand from scratch. And RozeMerie Cuevas, who took her Vancouver-born brand Global while protecting her brand's DNA.
Each story is different, but the common thread is clear. These founders lead with purpose, adapt with grit, and never lose sight of why they started.
Whether you're launching a brand or navigating your next chapter, you'll walk away with timeless advice, hard-won lessons, and the reminder that success in fashion doesn't come from following trends, it comes from following your truth.
Start with strong brand values. Each founder emphasized the importance of leading with purpose, clarity, and authenticity from day one.
Resilience is everything. The journey is filled with highs and lows. Your ability to adapt and keep going is what sets you apart.
Let your customer guide you. Staying in tune with your audience helps shape products that resonate—and drive sustainable growth.
Your brand DNA matters. A clear creative vision and consistent identity are essential, especially when scaling globally.
Purpose drives innovation. From capsule collections to new retail models, each founder found creative ways to align business with mission.
Believe in the signs—and yourself. Linda Lundström’s story reminds us that trusting your intuition can lead to magical outcomes.
Growth takes grit. International success doesn’t happen overnight. RozeMerie Cuevas shares how she scaled with a handshake, a vision, and relentless execution.
In this episode, Glynis Tao discusses how AI is changing the way SEO works, especially for fashion brands. She breaks down the differences between traditional SEO and AI-driven search, focusing on why authority and content structure matter more than ever. Glynis shares a case study featuring Nomi Designs to show how consistent, strategic blogging led to a feature in an AI Overview. She wraps up with straightforward tips to help you keep your SEO strategy effective as search continues to evolve.
🔥 My Online Visibility Roadmap uncovers the hidden technical + SEO issues holding you backand gives you a clear plan to fix them.
AI is changing how people discover your brand and products.
Traditional SEO focuses on optimizing for blue links.
AI SEO is about optimizing for visibility and AI-generated answers.
Content must be original, structured, and helpful to be cited.
Blogs are essential for training AI to see your brand as an authority.
Topic clusters help build topical authority for search engines and AI.
Use schema to make content easier for machines to understand.
Helpful content is prioritized by Google's helpful content system.
Brands need to create content that aligns with natural language queries.
Helpfulness beats fluff in content creation.
What is AI SEO and how is it different from traditional SEO?
AI SEO isn’t about ranking in the top 10 search results anymore. Tools like Google’s AI Overviews and ChatGPT are now summarizing answers and linking to trusted sources. If your brand isn’t seen as authoritative or helpful, it might get skipped—regardless of where you rank. SEO today is about being cited, not just clicked.
Why is your traffic dropping even if your rankings look fine?
If you’re still ranking well but seeing fewer clicks, AI could be the reason. Google’s SGE now shows AI-generated summaries at the top of results pages, pushing traditional listings further down. In March 2025, 13% of all queries triggered an AI Overview, double what it was two months earlier. You haven’t done anything wrong—search behavior is shifting.
What kind of content shows up in AI search results?
AI tools prioritize content that’s clear, structured, and helpful. Blog posts with specific answers, strong headings, schema markup, and a clear brand voice have a better chance of being cited. TLDR summaries, FAQs, and expert insights all help AI recognize your content as trustworthy and worth referencing.
Real example: How Nomi Designs got featured in AI Overviews
Nomi Designs, a sustainable linen clothing brand, saw major results from a focused blog strategy. Posts like “Can You Wear Linen in Winter?” and “How to Pack Linen Clothes for Travel” earned top placements in Google’s AI Overviews and brought in tens of thousands of impressions and clicks. The key? Clear structure, useful content, and strong internal linking.
What SEO fundamentals still matter (and matter more)?
Schema markup (FAQs, How-tos) helps AI understand your content
Helpful, expert-led writing builds trust with both users and machines
EEAT—Experience, Expertise, Authority, Trust—has become essential if you want AI tools to recognize your brand as a credible source.
How can you future-proof your SEO strategy?
Start by auditing your content for quality and authority. Remove fluff, add schema, and repurpose your strongest content across platforms like LinkedIn and YouTube. Most importantly, stay consistent and update older posts. AI search rewards helpfulness, not size—so even small brands can compete if their content genuinely serves their audience.
Chapters
00:00 The Impact of AI on SEO Strategies
01:15 Understanding AI SEO vs Traditional SEO
04:27 Building Authority in AI Search Engines
07:42 Creating Effective Content for AI Visibility
11:42 Future-Proofing Your SEO Strategy for AI
Transcript
Glynis Tao
AI is changing how people discover your brand and products and where you can make yourself visible. By learning how to adapt your SEO strategy while your competitors are away at their summer cottage, you are taking the important steps to future-proof your website's search strategy. In this episode, you'll learn how to adapt your SEO strategy and stay visible in AI-powered search engines like ChatGPT, Google's AI Mode, AI Overviews, and Bing Copilot. Let's do this.
Welcome to Chase Your Dreams, a podcast for fashion entrepreneurs who want to build a purposeful and profitable clothing business so they can make a living doing what they love. I'm your host, Glynis Tao, an apparel business consultant and SEO specialist with 20 years apparel industry experience. I'm also a mom to a wonderfully energetic little boy named Chase.
Hi and welcome back to the Chase Your Dreams podcast, the show for fashion entrepreneurs who want to build a purposeful and profitable business so they can make a living doing what they love. I'm your host, Glynis Tao, an apparel business consultant, SEO specialist, and founder of Chase Your Dreams Consulting. I help fashion, beauty, and lifestyle brands grow their online presence through SEO and AI search optimization.
In today's episode, AI SEO is here, how to future-proof your fashion brand online, we're talking about the rise of AI in search engines and what that means for your brand's visibility. If you've noticed that your website traffic is down, even though your rankings seem stable, it might not be you, it might be Google. We'll explore how AI is changing how people search, how content is surfaced, and what you can do to adapt your strategy to stay competitive.
So let's just start with the basics. What is AI SEO and how does it differ from traditional SEO?
Traditional SEO focuses on optimizing for Google's 10 blue links, ranking on page one by using keywords, backlinks, and on-page content. But AI SEO is about optimizing for visibility and AI-generated answers like ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google's AI Overviews. These tools don't just list your page, they summarize answers and cite authoritative sources. So if your brand isn't seen as an expert, it may be left out of those answers entirely. It's not about rankings anymore. It's about authority and being referenced. In other words, it's no longer just about getting clicks. It's about being cited as the source.
So Google's Search Generative Experience or SGE and Microsoft's Bing Copilot are two of the biggest disruptors. In fact, according to SEMrush, over 13% of Google queries triggered an AI overview in March 2025. That's double what it was just two months prior. SGE generates summaries at the top of the search engines results, reducing clicks to traditional organic listings.
So if you just think about the traditional Google search engine results page prior, previously we used to type in a keyword into the question box and then it would come up with an answer, the list of websites that you can click on. SGE generates summaries at the top of the search results, reducing clicks to traditional listings and Bing Copilot is integrating chat GPT directly into search experiences. So even if you're still ranking number one, you may be seeing fewer clicks.
Something that I talk about in detail in episode 45, Why Your Website Traffic is Dropping and What to Do About It, if you haven't listened to that yet I break down how to diagnose traffic drops using Google Search Console and how to spot issues that are caused by AI search. So have a listen to episode number 45. So the overall impact would be that there is less real estate for organic results, but more emphasis on authority and structured data so what kind of content gets cited in AI answers.
Blogs are still a powerful tool, especially when they're original, well structured, and helpful. So the way that LLMs work, their large language models, they look for original, structured, and helpful content. And so that's why it's really important now more than ever that your blogs and your content have FAQs, schema, and are written in an expert voice. These are things that will help your blogs become more likely to be cited. So AI tools are trained on written content and they favor blog posts that include several things such as specific answers to user questions, clear headings and subheadings, FAQs and schema markup.
And you can also have a TLDR summary or key takeaways, key takeaways at the top of your blog. And this is also something that I emphasized in a previous episode. That was episode 43 on How Blogging Builds Brand Trust and Boosts Sales. In that episode, I basically emphasized the point that blogging isn't dead. In fact, it's essential to train AI to see your brand as an authority. So make sure you have a listen to that episode.
In essence, that episode emphasizes the point that your blog posts can be your ticket to being mentioned in AI summaries, but only if they're structured well and actually solve a real problem for your audience.
Other tools you could try using are Reddit, LinkedIn, and YouTube as offsite content that influences AI visibility as well. Those are other areas and places that AI engines pull other information and data from.
Let's talk about the SEO building blocks that still matter and now matter even more. First of all, I talk about this a lot and also I have several blog articles written about it. It's about topic clusters and that's our practice of creating multiple related pieces of content around a central theme that helps build topical authority. That's a key signal for both search engines and AI. So I use this strategy for myself, my own blogs, and also for my client blogs.
Also, another thing you want to keep in mind is to use schema markup. So this is structured data like FAQs, how-to, and product schema that make it easier for machines to understand and site your content.
And also, the other thing you want to keep in mind is helpfulness. How helpful is your content? Because Google's helpful content system and AI Overviews prioritizes content that is people-first, expert-led, and designed to actually help. So AI doesn't just want keywords now, it wants clear, credible content from brands that it can trust. So that's where EEAT comes from, otherwise known as EAT, and that stands for Experience, Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness. Your site needs to show real authorship, updated posts, and a clear brand voice to earn that trust. I have several articles I talk about this, I will link to in the show notes.
AI power search engines like AI overviews and search GPT are changing how consumers are discovering your products. So these platforms are prioritizing more conversational intent-based search results. In order to stay visible, brands need to create content that aligns with natural language queries and prioritizes user intent. This means adapting your product descriptions, blogs, and FAQs to answer customer questions directly.
So let me give you a real example here. One of my clients, Nomi Designs, creates minimalist eco-friendly linen clothing that is sourced ethically and produced locally in Victoria, BC. We helped them develop a blog strategy focused on thoughtful, well-structured content that reflected their values and voice. As a result, several of their blog posts were recently featured in Google's AI Overviews, which is a major win in today's search landscape. So two blogs in particular are ranking right at the top in Google AI Overviews. So there are, Can You Wear Linen Clothing in Winter? is one. And this blog comes up as the number one result and AI overviews with a link directly to their website. And at the time after this blog was posted three months later, the blog had had 22,800 impressions and over 525 clicks. And it's also their second best performing page on their website. Currently, that blog ranks for over 1,000 keywords.
Another blog on their site, called How to Pack Linen Clothes for Travel. In the last six months, just before I hopped on to record this episode, I just went and checked in Google Search Console. In the last six months, this blog had over 47,200 impressions, 1120 clicks, ranks for over 1,000 keywords. Its average position is number seven. It's cited in the AI Overviews with a reference link, and it shows up as a number two position on the Google search engine results page. So this just shows you how powerful blogging can be if you follow a strategy.
So let me just break it down to you exactly what we did. So first of all, we created an SEO blog strategy for them that involves creating contextual content that aligns with their particular brand products categories. Okay, in this case, just linen clothing. We researched relevant blog topic ideas and then created a topic cluster that focused around a main topic with a proposed internal linking system. This helps to strengthen your web page's ability to rank. Another thing that internal linking does is that it helps to build and position you as a trustworthy subject matter expert in your audience. And this is important because Google wants to rank sites that demonstrate experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness.
The next thing we did is that we developed a blog brief and outline with clear section headings like the H1s and H2s, sections that were all listed. All the client had to do was fill out the brief with their firsthand experience and expertise. The blog then got optimized for SEO, such as title tags, meta descriptions, proper headings, image alt text, and then we also check for spelling and grammar. Then the blog is posted onto the website and submitted for indexing on Google Search Console. So all in all, even with fewer total clicks, we saw higher quality traffic and increased conversions. And that's the proof that with the right SEO strategy, even small fashion brands can compete in the age of AI.
Another point I want to mention is that their organic traffic contributes to half of their revenue and sales from their site. So if you are interested in learning more, you can read the full case study that's posted in my case studies area on my website.
So how can you future-proof your SEO strategy for AI? Well, I've covered a lot in this episode, but there's a few things that you can do to get started. The first thing you can do is to audit your content for authority. This is content that demonstrates your expertise and credibility across all your pages. So take a look through your content and remove anything that may not be as high quality as just maybe more fluff. Just get rid of them altogether because it could be doing more harm than good.
And then another thing you want to do is to use schema, especially in FAQ, how to's for blogs and product pages. You want to post helpful original content, right? Going back to the fluff, you want to avoid fluff. Fluff can be good in some places, but not when it comes to your content. You want to repurpose content on multiple platforms. You want to post full original content. You want to be the go-to source in your niche because you want to be known as the go-to expert in your industry or niche.
Then you want to repurpose content on multiple platforms. So once you've gone through and done all this work, right, you might as well use it and publish it, post it across all the other platforms like on LinkedIn, YouTube, on your social media. You know, you also want to share it, maybe in an e-letter, right? So you want to get it out there as much as you can. And most importantly is to stay consistent, build topic clusters and update older posts regularly to be able to maintain its freshness.
The brands that win an AI search aren't the biggest, but they are the most trustworthy and helpful. So in other words, this sort of levels the playing field because the big brands don't necessarily mean they have the most authority, right? Any business now of any size has the opportunity to stand out and show up in search now just by building your expertise, your trustworthiness and just think of everything that you create as being really helpful.
Helpfulness beats fluff. That's my last thing I would say is the takeaway you want to get out of this is helpfulness beats fluff any day.
So thanks for listening to this episode of Chase Your Dream Podcast. And if you found today's episode helpful, please be sure to subscribe and leave a review. Don't forget to check out the AI SEO case study with Nomi Designs, which I will include a link to in the show notes. And also the previous episodes on blogging and traffic drops.
If you need help building your SEO strategy for the age of AI, please reach out to me. Call or visit my website, glynistao.com, for SEO strategy and services. I have a new page up now dedicated to AI SEO, and I'll have other free resources and more to help support you along your journeys. Until next time, take care.
