Name: Alison Ferguson and Meaghan Relkie.
Business: Every Little Bit Eco-Shop, Port Moody, BC
Contact: 604-936-7249 www.everylittlebitgreen.com
Number of employees: Two.
Time in business: One year.
What is your business?
We offer a general-purpose online store featuring green products for everyday needs. We have a variety of environmentally friendly products for use in the home, and provide research and a rating on our items.
How did you get started?
Meaghan and I met through a volunteer organization and began talking about the difficulties in finding environmentally friendly products. A lot of stores are focused on only one area, such as baby products, and sometimes it’s difficult to find the green alternatives at the stores — I couldn’t find glass baby bottles for two months. We thought we could offer a one-stop shop for green products and the Every Little Bit emerged.
What kinds of things do you sell?
We don’t carry foods, but we do sell things such as bottles, bowls, toothpaste, cards, cleaning products. We have about 300 products listed and we provide ratings to show how green they are . We also do our best to research each supplier to find out how the products are made.
Is there a particularly popular item? The biggest seller is the reusable bag which folds up really small. Stainless steel water bottles and food containers — the whole litterless lunch bag idea — also sell well.
What do you like best about owning your own business? I like that we research all of the products ourselves, and that the business offers independence. We each have two little girls and the business allows each of us to stay at home with our children. It’s also satisfying to start a business from nothing and grow from there.
What is challenging about it?
Learning about search engine optimization and getting our business found online.
Future plans?
Some day I’d like to say this is more than a time-consuming hobby. We are working on marketing our business online. We also want to keep assessing our product line to see what else we should be carrying, and what we should let go.
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