A small business in downtown New West is making a big dent in the number of items being diverted from the landfill.
Jessica Brown opened the Refill Stop on Carnarvon Street on Nov. 1, 2019, with the goal of providing a shop where folks could bring clean containers or jars (or buy one at the store) and fill with assorted household and body care items. Brown is thrilled the Refill Stop is celebrating its fifth anniversary.
“It's been a pretty wild ride, to be honest, and lot of ups and downs,” she said. “But I feel like we've just been pretty adaptable, and keeping with that has kind of kept us going.”
Brown opened the Refill Stop with the hope of helping to reduce the amount of goods going into the landfill or recycling depot – and it’s worked.
“We've kept over 80,000 bottles out of landfill and recycling plants, and for a small store like us, that's huge,” she said. “Not only is it saving the customer money because they're not paying for the bottle every time, but it's saving the city money, it's saving energy – recycling isn't free; that's taxpayers money. So, if you're reusing the same container over and over again, it makes a difference. And the suppliers we buy from, they take their containers back.”
Prior to opening the Refill Stop, Brown had shopped at refill stores in other communities. She thought it would be great to have a store in New West.
“I didn't think too much about that actually; I just knew that it was something that I wanted to do,” she said. “I just really jumped in.”
The Refill Stop carries a wide variety of items, including dish soap, cleaners, laundry soap, shampoos, conditioners, deodorant, toothpaste and essential oils.
“They're all refillable,” Brown said. “It’s stuff for basically the home and body.”
Customers bring in reusable containers or purchase containers from the shop, which staff then fill with the products of their choice – as much or as little as the customer wants. The store also has a space where customers can leave bottles for others to use.
“Dish soap is Number 1, our unscented and scented dish soap,” Brown said. “Basically, what you use the most at home is what we sell the most; people use dish soap, so that's always been our number one seller.”
Brown said the Refill Stop carries all-natural cleaning products (which are not easy to find) and products that includes some synthetics. It also carries a wide range of unscented products – as well as scented products.
Beyond cleaning and home products, the Refill Stop carries a variety of locally made and fair trade products, including items often given as gifts.
“December is still our busiest time when we sell a lot at Christmas,” Brown said. “People do their refilling as well, but people want to support local, so they come in here. And also, we have a lot of interesting items that you don't see anywhere else; they're unique, and people want to support that and get those things.”
In recognition of its fifth anniversary, the Refill Stop is holding a storewide sale this weekend.
“The whole store, minus a few odds and ends or things that are already on sale, is 15 per cent off. So, 15 per cent off everything, both Saturday and Sunday,” Brown said. “One of the reasons we're doing two days is because the refilling is a bit of a process. So hopefully that allows more people to come in here.”
The Refill Shop, locate at 865 Carnarvon St., is open daily from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
“It’s tough out there”
In its five years of business in downtown New West, the Refill Stop has attracted some “pretty hardcore regulars” who are keen on doing “the refill thing” as well as many others who have heard about the store via word of mouth or when passing by.
“We've got a really good community of people who come here,” Brown said.
That community includes Sadie Hunter, who lives a highrise across the street. Like many of the store’s customers, she buys the dish soap – and other items used at home, including hand soap, laundry detergent and essential oils.
“First is supporting local,” she said about her reasons for frequenting the Refill Stop. “I also just really like the concept that you come in with your own container or you find one here. I also like the quality. For example, the laundry detergent I really love because it's so concentrated – you use so much less than what you might buy at a grocery store. So, I find the quality, for what you're getting, lasts longer too.”
After testing out the idea at farmers markets, Brown settled on a storefront location across from the New Westminster SkyTrain station – recognizing there were no other refill shops located near SkyTrain stations.
Since opening, the business has faced challenges related to COVID and construction of a nearby highrise on Carnarvon Street. While the shop is a little bit “off the beaten path” the Quayside resident said she is grateful to all the customers who have supported the shop – including those at the new Ovation highrise that’s located a few doors away on the same side of Carnarvon Street.
“It was a little rough at first, because there was construction right next to us. Now that it's open, things are much better. But that was years; that was about four years we were waiting for that to open,” she said. “We get a lot more people walking past on this side of the road now. And it's been a huge difference. You know, construction really can hurt a business but there's also a whole building of people that now live there.”
While the Refill Stop carries items that are necessities for households, such as cleaners and body products, Brown said the business wouldn’t be able to survive if that was all it carried. Early on, Brown created space in the store for vinyl records – a move suggested by her husband.
“That started pretty soon after we opened, but it was just with a box of used records,” she said. “My husband and I worked in the music industry years ago, and we were buying and selling used media for a long time. We even met working in a record store. We'd buy people's collections, clean them up and resell them again; we've been doing that for years.”
Selling records in the store was mostly Ken Wylie’s idea, Brown said, but it’s proven to be a move that’s supported the business through some of its most challenging times.
“You really have to be adaptable and think outside the box these days, when you own a business,” she said. “We do a lot to really kind of clean them up and make them ship-shape again. It's great to sell these as well. We have fun doing that. It brings in another kind of customer that might come in, and then they'll ask about the soap later, which is so cool.”
Being adaptable has been critical to the Refill Stop’s operations – especially at a time when many of the refill shops in the Lower Mainland have closed or are looking to closes, Brown said.
“I've been told a few more are all closing as well,” she said. “It's tough out there.”
