The Art of Curating Products and Building Community as a Retailer

0:00There is no guarantee, especially when you haven't done something before. You don't know until you try whether or not it's going to work. And that is a very uncomfortable thing to carry around, but it's just a part of being an entrepreneur. Hey, everyone. Welcome to Shopify Masters, your companion for starting and building a business. I'm your host, Schweng Esther Shan. A vibrant, independent retail scene is a underrated part of a thriving city. Our guest, Amanda McClements, felt that her city, Washington, D.C., was missing a store with unique home goods and gifts. After years of writing about local makers and small businesses on her blog, Amanda opened Salt & Sundry, a retail store at Union Market.

0:47Amanda is here to talk about being a reluctant entrepreneur and why she is passionate about independent retail. Thank you so much for being here, Amanda. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here. So happy to have you here to chat about the journey of opening Salt and Sundry. You actually had a whole other career before this as a journalist. How did that lead you to become a business owner? Yeah, so I had been living in D.C. about 10 or so years. I had been working as a journalist first in the very expected political newspaper world and then had transitioned into writing about food and restaurants, travel, which was a fun transition to make.

1:34It was something I was a little bit more passionate about. And a lot was happening in D.C. in sort of the mid-2000s, heading into the early part of 2010s. And I found myself writing a lot of stories about how amazing the restaurant scene was becoming, how amazing the neighborhood small business scene was becoming. And there was a part of me that was like, why is there not more independent retail in the city? There were some incredible retailers, obviously, who had been here for a long time. But it's an underserved city when it came to retail. And, you know, 13 years into this small business journey, I would say the same.

2:19Surprisingly, I really thought I was at the beginning of sort of a renaissance of independent retail, but I still think we're underserved. And so there was a place in my mind that existed that brought together a lot of the components of good food, good living, entertaining your friends, treating people to something special when they come over. And that was really where Salt and Sundry was born. The idea was born. And I think having this love for local businesses, local makers, they truly are the creators of culture in a way as well. And you've transitioned into writing so much about them and really honing your own taste and getting ideas what resonated with potential customers.

3:04So how did becoming a blogger and also a tastemaker in that space help you to start this business as well? Yeah, I think I didn't anticipate so much overlap from my journalism and writing career and being a shopkeeper. But there was a moment very early on where I realized, like you said, I was in my writing career telling stories of amazing people doing amazing things. And I was doing that in print or online on a blog digitally. There was a moment in my first shop in Union Market where I was standing there talking to a customer about this incredible nut butter from Durham, North Carolina, Big Spoon Roasters that we've carried the entire 13 years we've been in business.

3:54And I realized, wait, this is exactly what I was doing as a writer and as a journalist. I'm just doing it in person and kind of in a more hands on way of I'm actually offering this person access to this good, this product. And that was like a huge epiphany moment for me because, again, I really didn't think there was going to be much crossover between journalism and business. You know, I had to teach myself Excel and all the things that I didn't know, you know, with a journalism background. But, yeah, it was a very cool moment of just realizing that the storytelling aspect of my past was continuing.

4:40and it was continuing in a more in-person, tangible way. Yeah. Opening a retail store is huge and being a shop owner, there's probably a lot of hesitations you probably had. How did you work through some of those reservations you had in the beginning? Setting up a business is daunting if you've never done it. And for better or worse, local governments, there are a lot of hoops you have to jump through. There's a lot of real estate and business licensing and tax minutiae that, you know, if you've never done it, it can be so daunting and so intimidating. And I can remember sort of thinking, this is not how I want to spend my day.

5:22I wanted to be, you know, curating beautiful products to sell to people, but you have to do that part as well. So there was definitely a learning curve of you have to take the fun parts with the tedious parts. And, you know, I try to help whenever I can now other folks who are looking into starting a business, you know, it's like, don't reinvent the wheel. Like I can help with telling you how we did this or how we did that or how you navigate this licensing process. And, you know, I was lucky to have a really great community here of a lot of restaurant and bar owners, other small business owners who are all very giving and generous with their knowledge and their information.

6:06It's like a game of persistence. It's like you got to wake up and say, today I have to spend three hours on a government website figuring out how to file these tax forms. And then I'm going to get back to the part that I feel passionate about. When you're tackling those tedious parts or even just leveling up your knowledge about how to start a business, get things registered. What's your advice for new founders when they're trying to learn everything on their own so that they could get to the fun parts of running a business? Yeah. One of my biggest pieces of advice is don't feel stupid because you don't know something.

6:43If you don't know something because you've never worked in this space or in this world, there's nothing wrong with stopping someone in a conversation and saying, I'm sorry, I don't know what you mean by that, or I don't know what that acronym stands for. You know, there are all these moments in, you know, whether it's real estate or leases or the legal part of business where people throw out acronyms and you say, I have no idea what that means. And I remember feeling, you know, a little bit of, you know, hesitation to admit that I don't know what you're talking about, but why would you know what someone's talking about if you've never done it before?

7:20So I really encourage people to don't ever feel shame to stop a conversation and say, I'm sorry, I'm not familiar with what you're talking about. Can you explain that to me? And I've gotten better at that. And I also always stop people around me from speaking in jargon and acronyms when I know that the people in the room are not versed in that world or that lingo because I just find it annoying. And it's like, you know, just say the full word. You don't have to give an acronym. Yeah, be more inclusive in the way you talk. Exactly, exactly. Yeah. And then I think, of course, investing in a physical store, opening a retail space, there's a lot of financial obligations tied to it.

8:05How did you prep yourself for that? That was probably one of the scariest parts, the unknown and not knowing what I was going to be risking financially with signing my first commercial real estate lease. Again, talking to other people who have done it before, ask questions, ask for advice, ask for best practices. What were your lease terms? How did you negotiate safeguards in your business? That part's really scary. And there's, you know, the fact of the matter is there is no guarantee, especially when you haven't done something before. You don't know until you try whether or not it's going to work.

8:45And that is a very uncomfortable thing to carry around. But it's just a part of being an entrepreneur, I think. Is there a certain, I guess, like ratio or formula where you say, you know, I'm okay to sign this lease because I know there's so many people that are interested or things like that to make you feel a little bit comfortable with committing to a physical space? Yeah, I think, you know, one of the benefits of starting a business in your own community is that you have an intimate knowledge of what people want, how people act, where people walk, you know, what side of the street they tend to hang out or gravitate to.

9:31but like I said even knowing all of the stats all of the demographics all of the numbers there's really no such thing as a slam dunk when it comes to um the sort of foresight that you can have going into something but it's scary I mean I you just have to kind of make the leap and know that if it doesn't work out I think gaming out those worst case scenarios is an important part of getting comfortable with taking a leap. I think a lot of me in the beginning was like, what if it fails? And then you game that out and you say, okay, well, if it fails, then I pivot into something else or I go back to a different career or I try again in a different way.

10:14And then once you realize, okay, it's not, the worst case scenario isn't often as scary as people think it is. But going back to the financial piece, I think it's really important to understand what you're willing to put on the line and don't go deeper than that. I think sometimes that kind of caution can be a really great negotiating tool. So if you're talking about a lease or you're talking about how much you're paying perhaps a company or a designer to do your website, which I think in the beginning, you can do a lot of that yourself thanks to the platforms we have now like Shopify. But it's knowing like, okay, I have this much that I'm willing to put on the line and I'm not gonna go beyond that.

10:57Yeah. Have a bit of a limit as to how much you're willing to risk. Financials aside, there's also so many factors you need to look for when you're determining if this is a good retail location, if this is something that people will visit. What was on your checklist when you were looking for a store? I felt lucky that I had lived in the neighborhood Logan Circle in Washington, D.C. for a long time. So I knew a lot of the business owners well. I had watched businesses come and go. So I had a sense of the neighborhood. I ended up opening clear across town in a revitalized food hall. That was where the first shop opened.

11:36And that was more of a risk because we didn't know how quickly people would come. It was going to be this great food hall at some point. But in the early days, as we were ramping up, businesses were slowly opening. There was a cheesemonger, a bagel shop, the meat market that had been there for a while. And we thought eventually people will come, but we didn't know how soon. So there was some comfort in having that community of other folks who were in it, which I do think is a great thing to look for. If you're looking for a location, the neighbors are important. Do they compliment you? Do they bring the type of customer or client that you're looking for?

12:25That kind of community or co-tenancy, as it's called, is very important. And certainly being inside Union Market to launch the first shop gave me a lot of comfort that we're all in this together and we can exchange ideas. We can talk about foot traffic. We can figure out what's working and what's not working. And had it taken a longer time to get off the ground, we would have figured it out together. We were lucky that people immediately started flocking to the market, but that wasn't a guarantee. It sounds like there was a community of business owners that you can band together and figure out, you know, how do we drive more interest into the market and also kind of win together?

13:06Yeah, totally. And I think for me that, you know, I think people now talk about gatekeeping as this concept in business. And it's such a foreign concept to me because I love sharing information. And I think that you as a business owner can set that tone within a business community. and I always have felt really lucky that DC is, I think, very supportive in that way where business owners do exchange information. We use Slack, like I'm on a Slack channel with other retail business owners and, you know, we exchange marketing tips. We ask simple questions, you know, if it's snowing, are you closing today?

13:47What are you guys going to do? It's just sort of this like support system that you have that's so valuable. And, you know, I'm just really grateful to have it. But I think it's important to know that you can kind of set that tone. And by opening up, oftentimes people will open up in return. Not just opening up to fellow business owners in the market, but you also have all these relationships with great makers and artists that you source from. Take us through your sourcing process. Yeah. Sourcing is probably one of my favorite things about running Salt and Sundry. It is what comes naturally to me.

14:26I am a shopper at heart. I love going down an internet rabbit hole, looking for maybe a specific item for your kitchen or looking for a specific type of pottery or textile. So that part is really fun. And the network of business owners, like you said, that expands out from that. We have local makers who we stock, but we have folks in pretty much every corner of the globe also who we've been working with for years. And there's this real beauty in the world shrinking smaller and smaller when you have these relationships that span continents. And again, that's one of my favorite parts of curating retail shops is finding really talented people who are making really beautiful things and then bringing them to our customer and having our customer fall in love with it is what gets me going every day.

15:21And for people who are, you know, in the beginning process of developing those relationships with other makers or artists, what's your advice there to make sure that they're also excited about this partnership and kind of nurture that relationship over the years as well? I think that going in, knowing that it is a partnership and that there is, you know, collaboration there is really important. Like, you know, some of our vendors, the founders of the new savant, a candle company up in Brooklyn are a great example. We, we see them at the trade shows, but we've hosted them in the shop several times to have them come and tell their story in person to our customers.

16:06And I think when you think about the other small businesses, they have the same needs as you do, whether you're on the retail side, on the producer side, maker side, So knowing how are we able to collaborate, how are we able to amplify their story while they support what we're doing, you know, going into each interaction or each, you know, outreach with an open mind of how can I make this work for you? And here's what we're looking for, I think is the best approach. Yeah. And New Savant is started by Ingrid Nilsen, right? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And Erica. Yeah. And her partner, Erica. Yeah. I loved her content on YouTube.

16:45So I was like, yes. Yeah. I love that. Yeah, we're planning an event with them in June, hopefully, and have had them in the shop before. But they're, to me, a great example of a business that was started out of, you know, someone who was coming from a very different world. Ingrid and Erica were both coming from extremely different worlds. They were not candle makers. And now, you know, we can tell that story, get our customers excited about, you know, a woman owned business that, you know, is really a startup and came from a place of passion. And and then that relationship that we have where we can talk business, talk about, hey, what are you seeing in the market?

17:24What are your customers telling you about our candles? How can we continue to evolve together is just a really cool relationship to have. Totally. And I think the fact that Ingrid and Erica were in your shop, and I think that's just like one of the ways you make this in-store experience so unique. So yeah, what are some other things where you make sure that the store is one of a kind? You know, there was a moment early on where we had a team meeting where I was probably still a little bit self-conscious about the brand in as far as how, was it cohesive and were people seeing it the way I wanted them to see it?

18:04And I remember thinking, gosh, we have all these different types of products. It kind of looks like chaos to me sometimes. Controlled chaos, but chaos nonetheless. us. And we asked the team to write down adjectives that they thought of when they thought of the Salt and Sundry brand. And a lot of them said cohesive. And I was like, really? I'm so happy to hear you say that. Because when I look at it, it feels chaotic sometimes. And that's all me and my buying, but you know, I like this style and I like this style. Some, sometimes I'm more drawn to this color. Sometimes I'm more drawn to this color.

18:45So it's kind of this happy, um, uh, amalgamation or combination of, of all of the whims and tastes in my mind at any given time. And I think that, you know, as a business owner, that is your special sauce. That's your, that's your secret is your perspective what you bring to people um is what makes you stand out and what makes you um unique so I think you know we can all look to other brands or you know oh these these folks are doing this or wow their Instagram looks like this but I think you really have to like find your own center and your own sort of true north of but is this something that makes me excited.

19:35Is this something that I feel passionate about? It's like, you know, people say this when they're talking about decorating your home. It's like, don't worry about if it's trendy or cool in this certain year. If you like it and it speaks to you, your home is going to come together in a way that feels really authentic. And I think the same goes for retail curation, whether that's e-commerce or in person is that's your magic to give to people. Yeah. And I think to your point, similar to a home, you're the one who has to be in it for hours on end. So yeah, I feel like that's such an important pulse check.

20:12I know that you've also expanded into a second store as well. Talk to us about the decision to expand. Yeah, the business has expanded and contracted over the years, depending on real estate opportunities. We had a wonderful plant shop called Little Leaf for a really great seven-year run that I miss a lot. So the largest we were was four brick and mortar shops and the e-commerce shop. Right now we have two great locations, Logan Circle and Union Market here in DC. but you know going back to what we were talking about with there being no real guarantees in the real estate market I think that sometimes I feel like I'm too cautious and that you know a bolder entrepreneur would be signing leases left and right but I'm really glad that I've been very intentional and careful and considerate about expansion because it really can put a lot of strain on a team.

21:10It puts a strain on bandwidth. Creative bandwidth is a real thing. And I think that's something that I learned a lot of lessons about launching multiple brands. You know, when you sit down and you say, okay, so I need to give attention and ideas to this concept, this team, these wonderful people who work for me, and then turn around and have two or three more brands that you then need to do the same for, your creative bandwidth is not unlimited. You know, we all only have a certain number of hours in the day, so it does stretch it thin. So, you know, we're always looking for the right next opportunity, but I'm very critical when I think about that.

21:57And again, like I said, there's times when I get insecure and I think a bolder entrepreneur would have gone a lot harder for this. But I don't think that's always right for our team. And I don't think that's always been right for the brand. So right now, that's where we are. Yeah. And I think this is what I love about our show is that we do highlight stories that is from all different industries and also different ways of growth. So often we hyper focus on hyper growth. And I don't think that's the right answer for everyone. So yeah. When people think of business, they think, oh, okay. can you get funding?

22:36What's your exit strategy? And I think there's a lot of existential questions in that assumption that people have about that's what a successful business looks like. And I think understanding that so much of the fabric of business really globally is still based on small, independent retail in communities. And sometimes that's a business that supports It's you and a small team. Sometimes that's a business that perhaps it's a little bit bigger and you're a local chain, if you will. But I think that sort of widening people's perspective to that is really where a lot of business is still done. And sure, there are the unicorns in the VC world who we all know about and read about, but that's not really the norm.

23:24And I think accepting that that's okay and that might not be the path is something that I still question and struggle with sometimes because I'm like, take your shot, go all the way. And then it's like, well, but maybe that's not what's right for you. Yeah. Because at the end of the day, like being in your shop and being able to provide a livelihood for all the artists and makers that contribute to the store, I think that's not something you want to leave behind. And I feel like that's probably just like where you want to be. I guess because we talked a lot about how these small businesses, makers and artists contribute to the fabric of a city and a community.

24:06Why is it more important than ever to kind of foster the growth of local businesses and independent retail? I think that COVID was a really interesting and telling time for neighborhoods and communities. And I think that people realized how uniquely vulnerable, but also special small businesses are, whether that's a small town or a big city. and to me I do think there was a lot of awareness in those first couple months of that came from fear of oh my gosh we're going to lose all of our favorite restaurants we're going to lose all of our favorite shops because the world has shut down um so I I hope that people came out of what was a really difficult and traumatizing time for people across the world with a new awareness of what does your community mean and how do you make decisions intentionally to support the community around you?

25:11And I think real estate is crazy in the US and probably Canada as well, but it's, I think, understanding that the local politicians you put in power, local governments, do have an ability to sort of grease the wheels, if you will, to make it easier to open small businesses. So I think there's that piece. And then there's also the consumer piece of where do you spend your money? Are you doing next day shipping on a mass retailer website while your hardware store down the street goes out of business? Or are you walking down the street and buying the light switch covers from the local business. We are responsible at the end of the day for the survival of small businesses.

26:07As a former food writer, I hear people a lot say when a beloved restaurant closes, it's like, no, oh my gosh, I love that place. And then you say, well, when was the last time you went there and had dinner? When was the last time you went there and spent money? So I think that's something that people really need to take to heart is that where you spend your dollars shapes the community around you. It's more important than ever to support your local businesses. You actually have an online component to Salt and Sundry. Why is that important to have both channels and how can people support their local businesses online as well?

26:46E-commerce, I took it for granted when I first opened the store. I just said, yes, we absolutely have to have a website and every item that we have in the store has to be on it. And then you realize, oh, it's another shop. It's essentially an additional business with very different needs, very different marketing needs. But I do still think it's a really important extension of a brand. And I want people to be able to come in, whether they're visiting from LA, New York, they always say, do you sell online? And we're like, of course we sell online. you know, here's our card. So the retail shops are the heart of our business, but e-commerce is such an important added facet of it.

27:25You know, we can present our products in a different way, whether that's through photography, through, you know, curation on online, which looks very different than it does in store. I think one of the challenges for brick and mortar retailers is always, how do you make that feel really consistent, the look and feel of your website with the look and feel of your store? How do you create the same vibe? How do you create the same feeling? And that's a fun challenge. My team just did a really beautiful brunch shoot where we set a gorgeous table. You know, that turns into Instagram content, that turns into a banner on the website, and then it's also represented in the shops physically.

28:05So it's a fun way to think about meeting your customers where they are. And, you know, one of the interesting things about our e-commerce is that we have customers who live blocks away who will place orders online because that's how people shop. So it's important for us to be able to offer that. And maybe next week they come into the shop and they buy things in person. And in two weeks from now, they have a reason that they're not fitting in a visit physically to the shop. And that's That's great too, but they can support us in all of those different channels. Yeah. Well, I mean, I'm so glad we talked through so many different areas of salt and sundry and also just small business in local economies.

28:52To close off the show, what's your advice for people who might have similar interests? They might love beautiful home goods and they love curation, but they might feel a little intimidated because other businesses exist out there and they feel scared about taking that plunge or opening their own store? Comparing your idea or yourself to others can be useful when understanding the lay of the land, but know that there is so much room, especially in your community for additional perspectives. And I think just because someone is doing something similar, um, or you might think better than you could do it.