Hello Stranger

It’s been a very long time since I wrote to you guys, but I feel today is the day. I used to blog all the time, but time is hard to come by these days and writing has definitely been put on the back burner. I’m writing this while sitting in our “This is Nice” Ponsonby Central Pop-up shop. It seems rather surreal sitting behind a desk in a shop full of beautiful women led, value driven brands. My younger self would be in awe of what I’m up to these days. However, that’s not to say it’s easy. It’s been a pretty tough few years, that’s for sure.

I can’t quite believe it’s coming up to 4 whole years of running Ethically So. It feels like just the other day I was getting frustrated with the fact I couldn’t find all my eco essentials in one place in New Zealand. I was fed up of having the pay all the extremely expensive shipping fees and ended up with products that didn’t work or just weren’t for me. Which is where the idea Ethically So. came from!

Things We’re Proud of:

Since I’m sitting here feeling extremely humble of how far we’ve come thanks to YOU, it hasn’t been with out a lot of hard work, late nights and never ending pack ins for markets. P.S markets are SO MUCH HARDER than I ever could have imagined. I also thought it looked amazing living the market life, but trust me, it’s a lot!

• Running our second Pop-Up shop in Ponsonby Central with ‘This is Nice’

• Launching our 12-Months of Eco Living E-Book

• Planting 4,620 trees across the world

• Running our Pledge Me campaign and raising over $5850 to help us grow & support more local New Zealand Small Businesses

• Reducing 81.19 tonnes of carbon

• Launching our Eco Wellness Subscription Box

• Managing to keep Ethically So going / growing throughout COVID

• Working a full time job + doing Ethically So. on the side

• We finally got a financial advisor (thanks to the pledge me campaign)

• We’ve been working with a Business Coach to help with our strategy (thanks to the pledge me)

• I spoke at an Eco Educate Event

What We’ve got Coming Up

We've had quite a few people asking lately what the future of Ethically So. looks like, and to be honest I’m not sure. For now we will definitely keep bumbling along and see where this amazing eco journey takes us. I’m excited about getting the Eco E-Book live, and also seeing how our amazing Eco-Wellness Subscription Boxes go, so we can keep educating our customers, and followers about low-waste living. We’ve just moved house, and have a bit more space to play with in terms of growing our stock levels. The Pledge Me campaign we ran last year has allowed us to expand in more ways than one which is amazing. I’m loving having a business coach to help guide me on the areas I’m not very knowledgeable in, and also a somebody to help me with my finances is a non negotionable going forwards.

Our Dream

If I was able to dream without having any restrictions, I would definitely love with have a little shop attached to a coffee house one day. For now however that will very much have to stay as a dream for the future. Another goal would be for Ethically So. to be able to support myself + a couple of other workers from our local community. I guess one day I’ll get the point where I’ll have to choose between my corporate job & my little side hustle. However I’ll keep doing both for as long as I possibly can.

We can all dream the dream hey, it’s just a matter of doing it.

Love Annie // @ethicallyso

xxx