To Market We Go | Waste Not, Want Not
A Sustainable Shift
I first heard about The Waste Less Shop last year. My cousin had visited the store and shared her adventure on Instagram stories, which I watched with intrigue. I happened to run into my cousin that same day and asked her about it as I was very curious. She explained that it is a place you can go to purchase eco-friendly products for your home and personal care. You can bring your own containers or purchase containers from them, helping to reduce plastic waste.
See how that brand awareness worked - all without The Waste Less Shop having to spend a dime on advertising? I watched user generated content on Instagram, had a discussion about this business as a result, and discovered how the woman pictured above does Mother Nature a solid. Social media works!
Check out my interview with the owner of The Waste Less Shop, Stephanie Cochrane
You have chosen a different career path, do you miss anything about your former line of work?
My favorite part about being a dental hygienist was the relationships I built with my patients. Some of my patients are actually customers at the shop now and I have really loved developing relationships with the people I meet every day, so I feel lucky to have been able to transfer my favorite part of my past career to where I am now.
The South Bay is not your original home, where did you grow up and what drew you to this area?
I grew up in a tiny town in Northern Nevada called Winnemucca, it’s about 180 miles north of Reno, so not exactly beachfront property. After graduating from high school I moved to Colorado for college and afterward moved to Texas for dental hygiene school. I moved back to Nevada in 2014 to be closer to family and in 2015 I met my now fiancé who lived in El Porto. I moved in with him in 2018 and have felt so blessed to have been able to experience living on a farm, living in the mountains, and living right on the beach. I love the community in the South Bay and that there are SO many people who love and care for our planet, it’s inspiring and makes me want to fight harder for our environment.
What was the most difficult household product to give up when you began switching to more eco-friendly products.
I honestly haven’t had any difficulty with any of the swaps I have made inside my home. I truly love all of the products I use today from my laundry paste bar to Unpaper Towels and Stasher Bags. I can’t say I ever loved Ziploc bags or paper towels. I have always hated those ugly plastic containers of Tide detergent, Dawn dish soap, shampoo etc. So swapping to reusable, beautiful products has been full of joy. Where I still struggle is outside my home with grocery shopping. I have Celiac’s Disease, so for safety a lot of food comes in single-use packaging unless I am making it completely from scratch at home. I try and stick with whole foods but the packaging still seeps in.
How did you first start getting the word out about your store?
Everything was really organic with the store for the first year. We are just now starting to focus on advertising. My naïveté wanted our growth to be as natural as our products were, which has been wonderful, but now we are starting to focus on using the tools around us to gain more exposure within the community.
When customers first visit your store what is your approach to educating them?
I start by asking which products they are looking to replace and educate them on the financial and environmental savings of the sustainable counterpart we carry in the store. I tell them it is a long game, not an overnight success story, they need to use what they have first and then choose a more sustainable option when it’s time to restock. It took me almost a year to use up all of the bottles of shampoo I had accumulated before I made the swap to shampoo bars. It's about making small shifts that create big change in the long run. If we demand sustainable products through our consumer actions we will begin to see those products more readily available at a lower price point. It’s up to us to demand that change.
One tree is planted with every purchase, can you give us more information about this project?
We partner with a non-profit organization based in Vermont that has teams of volunteers all across the world planting trees to aid in reforestation. I love that we can select where we want to plant based on which area has the most dire need. They research local topography and plant trees that are indigenous to the area to ensure the most likelihood for success and long term sustainability. In my eyes, if we as consumers are taking resources out of the earth we need to be working to replace them at an equal or greater rate.
The Riviera Village Certified Farmers Market has become a second home for The Waste Less Shop. Tell us about the decision to become a vendor there.
We love our tiny storefront in North MB, but it’s not the most easily accessible location due to limited parking and traffic. Many of our customers live in more southern areas of the South Bay. I wanted to make shopping at our store more accessible for those customers. It’s a great way to reach people who may have never seen our storefront or found us online otherwise.
You’ve had to adapt with the pandemic and make changes to your website, like the awesome video demonstrating your Home Delivery Program. How has digital marketing benefited your business?
As I said, we are just getting started with truly optimizing marketing, but we know the importance of sharing updates through the pandemic to inform customers about daily changes we are making to safely deliver our products to customers. We have been working tirelessly since March to maintain a safe work environment and to help as many at risk consumers receive essential goods as possible.
How do you use social media platforms to reach people and which one is your most effective?
We use Instagram heavily to reach our audience. It is a great way to tell our story through visuals and conversation. Growing a network through social media is as easy as someone tagging a friend in a comment who then tags another friend who then follows your page. I love the organic nature of it, we follow what interests us and can discover endless educational resources, advocates, and connections with people and brands we may have never come across otherwise.
Ways To Shop
Riviera Village Certified Farmers Market
1801 S. Elena Ave.
Redondo Beach, CA, 90277
Sundays
9:00am - 2:00pm