Shoppers are increasingly looking for more from their gift-buying than simply finding the best deal. They want their purchases to stand for something.
The National Retail Federation calls them “purpose-based consumers” because they buy products that align with their personal values. NRF and the IBM Institute for Business Value surveyed 18,980 consumers in 29 countries and found that 40% of shoppers are purpose-based.
These discriminating buyers are willing to pay a premium for products when retailers go beyond the sale.
Whether it’s giving a portion of proceeds to charitable causes or supporting a social movement, here are three North Texas-based small businesses that are giving back this holiday season.
Oluna: Reversing ‘period poverty’
Unlike most business owners, Dallas native Emmy Hancock knew the mission of her Oluna brand before she had a business plan — bring awareness to menstrual health inequities.
Hancock, 25, who graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a criminology degree in 2015, said she first learned about the issue through media coverage of the “Year of the Period” movement, which was catapulted by Kiran Ghandi, an activist who ran the London Marathon without any period products.
The menstrual equity movement seeks to eliminate taxes on feminine hygiene products and provide supplies to people experiencing “period poverty,” defined as an insufficient supply of hygiene products. Texas and 29 other states tax menstrual products.
“You have homeless women who resort to using trash and newspapers instead of period products,” Hancock said.
The day after she graduated from college, Hancock bought an LLC with the name Oluna, a reference to the myth that menstrual cycles are connected to the moon and ocean tide.
“By creating the LLC, it was almost a promise to myself to go forward with the idea at some point,” she said.
Five years later, Hancock kept that promise when she launched Oluna, a retail brand that donates a year’s supply of feminine hygiene products for every pair of pants sold.
“The incarcerated, the homeless, and the poor are the ones that are most affected by it,” Hancock said. “Period products are not covered by [government assistance programs], and they’re not included under insurance.”
After graduation, Hancock worked in New York City in the commercial real estate industry. The COVID-19 pandemic forced her to retreat to Dallas, where she works virtually for OnSiteIQ, a technology startup that monitors construction progress.
“And it’s been a really hard time, but one of the best silver linings for me personally is I’ve been able to sit down with Oluna and really get this thing off the ground,” she said.
Hancock became interested in the fashion and retail industry when she modeled during her high school years at Hockaday, a private all-girls college preparatory school. She was signed at agencies in Dallas, New York and Paris and modeled in campaigns for retailers like J.C. Penney and Neiman Marcus.
With the help of her aunt, who sews as a hobby, Hancock designed the pants with inclusivity in mind. After creating the pattern, Hancock sent the design to a women-run manufacturer in Dallas. The pants come in four sizes and three colors: black, olive and multicolor stripes. They range in price from $67 to $69.
“I thought the pants were perfect for work from home, especially during quarantine,” Hancock said. “You can wear them in the morning, you can wear them to go out at night with dinner, you can wear them working or lounging around watching TV.”
In addition to pants, Oluna also sells merchandise like hoodies, stickers and baseball caps. Hancock designed all the merchandise herself, targeting both women and men as customers.
“I realized ... that men and women are equally interested,” she said “And it’s so affirming and validating to see men provide support because it’s truly more of a gender equality issue. Women shouldn’t just be carrying this on their back.”
OuiPlease: Supplying women’s shelters
Paris-born Jessica Barouche planned on traveling and working as an au pair for only a year when she arrived in the United States in 2012. With an MBA in international luxury management in hand, she always dreamed of living in America.
“My friends were like, ‘What are you gonna do in Texas, like cowboys?’” Barouche said. “I was really open-minded, and I really wanted to experience the culture of America.”
Two years later in 2014, the now 32-year-old planted her roots in Carrollton when she launched her startup OuiPlease, a luxury French subscription box service. Barouche said OuiPlease lets her introduce French brands to the U.S. market.
Customers can buy a single box for $165. There are also membership options: bi-monthly for $150 or annual (six boxes total) for $650. For its holiday box, OuiPlease has partnered with Ladurée, a French luxury bakery that specializes in macarons.
“Not going to lie, you learn as you go as an entrepreneur, especially in a foreign country where I didn’t know anybody. All of my family is still in France,” Barouche said. “You make mistakes on the road and you keep going.”
OuiPlease was inspired by a trip back to Barouche’s hometown with her friends, who were all excited about a subscription box service. She returned to the U.S. knowing she wanted to use her prior experience working at Hermès to create a high-end French subscription box service with full-sized products rather than samples.
OuiPlease is completely self-funded and brings in about $1 million in annual revenue, Barouche said.
“People love French products — like there’s this mystic thing about France — and dreamy things that people really look forward to discovering in French brands,” Barouche said.
Last year, Barouche partnered with Genesis Women’s Shelter to create the Box of Hope through its OuiCare program.
“I want [OuiPlease] to have meaning besides sharing my culture,” Barouche said. “It’s a great way to continue and have a second life for the OuiPlease box.”
In every box, customers are given a pamphlet with a list of common household items needed at women’s shelters — clothing, beauty products and cleaning supplies — and a return label for Genesis, a Dallas organization that serves 3,700 women a year.
Instead of disposing of their boxes, customers are encouraged to fill them with supplies for Genesis. Barouche said 20% of OuiPlease boxes last year were sent to the shelter.
“I sent thank you notes to my customers when we just started doing this because I wanted to tell them how thankful I was for them to believe in this project,” Barouche said.
Soap Hope: Vocational training for disabled adults
In 2019, only 19% of people with disabilities were working in the U.S. compared with 66% for people without disabilities, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Kate Knight’s job is to help reconcile those numbers.
As director of MPact, a public-benefit corporation and subsidiary of nonprofit My Possibilities, Knight runs for-profit businesses like Soap Hope that support My Possibilities’ mission of providing vocational education and development for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
“I’m getting to do my dream job because I studied the intersection of for-cause organizations and business entrepreneurship,” Knight said. “[Soap Hope] is really bringing all those things together.”
Soap Hope’s profits go to My Possibilities programs. It also hires disabled adults, including two who work about 30 hours a week on the fulfillment team.
Soap Hope’s career services team brings students from My Possibilities and local ISD special education departments to its warehouse and showroom in Plano. In recent months, Soap Hope has been training three students from Wylie ISD.
“[The students] do all the things — you’ll be expected to show up on time, take your breaks, do your tasks you’re assigned to, but with a job coach to really help these individuals, who probably have never been in this sort of setting ever before,” Knight said.
Although its mission now is to support vocational training for disabled adults, Soap Hope also helps raise awareness of brands with natural products. In the last six months, Knight said, she’s focused on adding more diverse brands and Black-owned businesses.
“We try to have a mix of brands that people know as clean brands, but then also introducing people to new brands that share those qualities,” Knight said. “So it’s having that balance of introducing people to new things but also having the products that they know and love.”
Soap Hope made a difficult decision in early summer to not put disabled adults in the warehouse because they are considered high-risk for COVID-19, Knight said. But moving into a new Plano warehouse in August gave her better controls over protocols, and Soap Hope was able to bring on two disabled adults as part of its crew.
“It’s been a double-edged sword because what do people need in the pandemic? They need soap. They need hand sanitizer,” she said. “We’ve been able to really jump in with some of that, but at the same time, [we have] the supply chain challenges and all the issues that come along with trying to run a business in a pandemic.”
Soap Hope-branded hand sanitizer was born out of pandemic necessity, but it demonstrated that there’s high interest in the business’ product line, Knight said. New branded products include artisan hand soap, body lotion and beeswax lip balm.
For the holiday season, Soap Hope is selling special scents like Snowflake, Frankincense and Myrrh, and Merry Mistletoe.
Of her disabled workers, Knight said, “they are so proud of the work that they do here.”
