Aga Wajda-Plytta was in the midst of co-organizing her second pop-up refill market, when COVID-19 cases began appearing in Alberta. Feeling a sense of responsibility towards the vendors who signed up, she joined forces with Nina Karpoff, the owner of Buck Up Mix — and the duo were determined to help small businesses cope with the shutdown. So they got to work. And in 48 hours, they built a user-friendly online one-stop shopping platform from scratch — Good Goods Company. Starting with 11 vendors, the company grew to over 100 businesses over the past six months, and sold almost 10,000 items.
“We found the community really backed us…and worked with us, which was inspiring to see,” says Karpoff, a co-founder of Good Goods and N2 Photo.
There is a sort of a snowball effect to it: Users go to the website to buy certain items, and discover goods from other Edmonton businesses they may not have known about.
“It’s a platform that relies on collective success,” says Karpoff. “You don’t have to put out the light of another to shine brightly on your own, you’re amplifying each other … we’re trying to change the way people see shopping.”
For businesses, the main benefit is convenience. Good Goods takes on all the heavy lifting — marketing, sales and delivery. The vendors only need to undergo the vetting process.
Karpoff says their goal is to support local businesses without taking traffic away from the online platforms the businesses have already built, and help them expand their reach.
“We rely a lot on the synergies of having all these businesses, to ensure everyone gets more exposure,” says Wajda-Plytta, a co-founder of Good Goods and owner of Herbologie. “And we leverage that to make sure people are seeing the true potential.”
This article appears in the Winter 2021 issue of Edify
