Retail
For years, Cindy Bokitch’s family had to deal with her sense of smell. “I have this thing, if I smell strong perfume, I get a headache within five minutes,” she says. “When we’d go to hotels, my kids would send...
Helena McShane didn’t always know that supermarket produce displays are just for show. “Not to shame other grocery stores, but I never realized that those piles of oranges are there for me to look at, not to buy,” says McShane...
Amelia Warren never planned to go into the family business. “In our family, it was always, Find a way to give back,” says the CEO of food maker and retailer Epicure. “I always thought that would be through charitable work.” So...
Mirabela Muresan worked for the same luxury automotive business for more than two decades, but when the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020, she was laid off. “I felt very vulnerable,” shares Muresan. “After dedicating my career and my life to the...
You might not expect a 29-year-old garment factory to embrace the cutting-edge, complex technology of 2022 (most 29-year-olds I know don’t even have TikTok), but that hasn't stopped Precision Design Group. The Richmond-based company has been pattern-drafting, cutting, sample-making and manufacturing...
Like dirty laundry or loose receipts, pill boxes are a household item that most of us tuck away when company’s coming. When Kate Bouchard, founder of Vancouver-based marketing agency Armature Collective, was looking for a storage solution for her vitamins...
From jewellery to soaps to handwoven bags, here are some of the best local goods from Black-owned companies. Inspired by artisans from her tribe, Lois Okello started selling handwoven baskets as a side hustle in 2018. But Vancouver-based Boostani isn’t your...
Remember the boring old days, when a store was just a store? Now there’s rarely a retail opening that doesn’t involve some other interesting angle, whether that’s a workshop space, an art exhibition area or, in Vancouver-based Herschel Supply Co.’s...
There’s nothing like a viral video to make a business blow up (that’s Gen Z for prosper, oldies). Video-sharing app TikTok has turned social media marketing into an entirely different game, and these B.C. companies are in it to win...
Body and skincare companies tend to romanticize their products and their process. But what happens when that ultra-satisfying soap cutting doesn’t go as planned? When Indigenous entrepreneur Francesca Amine started making her own soaps, it took her an entire year to get...