I’m setting up my own webshop. It’s not official yet, but it’s a project I’ve been working on for quite some time, and as the deadline I’ve set for myself is approaching, I am busy getting all the bits and pieces to fit in order to be ready for that great milestone: my first order! Everything has to be ready, the products, the information tags, the photos, the website…and the packaging!
As you may have expected, my products are good in the Grazzhopprz meaning of the word: sustainable. I consider the materials I use – where do they come from? Are they environmentally-friendly or at least not damaging? Is the paper I use FSC or recycled (or both)?
Despite the surge in good products (just read this blog!), many things are still unclear. I am not able to sort out production chains of every single piece of material I need, but I do my best and I will keep on working. One of the biggest and perhaps most challenging parts of this aspect of my business preparations, was finding good packaging. I had never really considered that this could be hard to find – with all the good products on offer, surely there were several companies offering good packaging? But in the end it took me quite some time to find what I was looking for, and I was thrilled when I finally stumbled upon the Tiny Box Company.
The founder, Rachel Watkyn, turned out to have gone through the same discovery as I recently have when she was about to set up her business: “In 2007, The Tiny Box Company’s founder, Rachel Watkyn, searched for recycled packaging for her range of ethical and fair trade jewellery and accessories. Rachel thought this would be easy. She was wrong. What she did find, after months of research, was that there was an extremely high demand for recycled and ethical packaging but no one to meet that demand. Rising to the challenge, Rachel started up a packaging company with a huge difference.”
Picture: from the Tiny Box Company
The products offered by the Tiny Box Company are all recycled or eco-friendly, and the product types range from small jewellery boxes to photography, stationery, food… as well as ribbons and bags. These boxes and other packaging stuff are good in the meaning of sustainability, but they also look good - something that is very important to me: I want to have sustainable products but with high-quality, the image I’m going for is not “you buy this out of solidarity”, no, you have to buy my products because you like them and they are supposed to make you feel good in a spoiled way, not in a “charitable” way.
Picture: from the Tiny Box Company
I’ve just placed my first order and look forward to receiving my boxes. I will keep you updated on how it goes, both with my boxes and my webshop, but in the meantime I just wanted to share this discovery with you – perhaps there are more people out there looking for the same solution as I was!
Tove Antonissen
