When I first started onto this venture, I had a business coach who told me to just source the cheapest product and go with that. I ended up making some really thick itchy shirts and realized that was not the route for me. I switched to a softer tee, but there was still something bugging me. For a long time in my personal life I have made it a point to purchase from ethical companies as much as it is possible.
But then I wasn't ensuring that the materials and items I was sourcing were ethical in my own small shop?
The math wasn't mathing as they say. And so I did an evaluation of all my materials and sources then started researching.
I found that Bella Canvas have a sweatshop free guarantee, and so that is the brand I started to go with for all my blanks. They're soft, they come in a wide variety of colors, they come in a huge variety of different styles. And so we became solely sourcing blanks from Bella Canvas for all of our tees, hoodies, crewnecks, etc.
I do the same thing with the materials like inks for the direct to film printer as well as the transfer films. As I started researching for boutique items to incorporate into my shop I knew that them being ethically sourced was going to be a huge consideration. But I have found several vendors that can guarantee this, and I am super excited about launching our first boutique items on June 21st in The Summer Court.
It may take me longer to expand and be a little more costly, but it's well worth the piece of mind knowing that I am not contributing to the mass production of items using exploitative labor practices.
So when you shop with us you can know that you're shopping with a small business that takes pride in their work, and makes sure that they are not harming others in the process.