Kirsty first came up with the idea for Lola & Wild — an online store specialising in plastic-free, sustainable and ethical products — a few years ago. Prior to launching the business in March 2020, she spent a year refining her vision and researching products — no easy task given her strict sustainability criteria.
Now, March 2020 may ring a bell — it’s when the UK began to be seriously impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, and the country went into lockdown. While this was an incredibly hard time for many businesses, Lola & Wild quickly went from strength to strength — such was the demand for cruelty free and sustainable products, with the then-necessary convenience of home delivery.
Kirsty shared some of her thoughts on the future of sustainability in retail, and how she’s been able to use CREOATE to grow faster, and offer more products:
Why did you start Lola & Wild?
"I’ve always been conscious of the amount of waste I’m responsible for, and a few years ago I was becoming more and more conscious about the amount of single use plastic coming out of my kitchen, and out of my bathroom. I really wanted to find alternatives. So I started to search — not just for plastic-free products, but for really good quality, effective, natural alternatives. Better for us, better for the environment."
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What do you love most about what you do?
"I think my favourite aspect of what I do is the amazing people I meet along the way. I have so much respect for these entrepreneurs who have so much passion for nature and the environment, and they create products that truly reflect that.
It’s hard to put together truly sustainable products. It would be so much easier to choose the cheap plastic packaging, or to use fillers and preservatives, but they don’t do this. They choose to painstakingly find a way around it, and for that I have a huge amount of admiration.
And the more people that shop plastic free, the more companies will create plastic-free products."
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What do you love most about sourcing through CREOATE?
"As a small business, I don’t have a huge amount of space for stock, so I have to restock fairly regularly. I discovered CREOATE about six months ago and I was so pleasantly surprised to see so many of the brands I already stock on their website. It makes my day so much simpler to be able to order everything in the same place, at the same time. Every time I log on, I see more of the brands I know and love on there.
Sourcing new brands is something I absolutely love, but it’s also incredibly time-consuming, and CREOATE have made it super simple. I think I’ve discovered about twenty new brands, some of which are very small, and I may not have discovered without CREOATE. The free delivery is also a massive saver as I was previously paying a separate delivery fee for each order, so this means I have more to invest in stock."
Thank you so much for sharing your story with us, Kirsty! Please do go and check out the amazing Lola & Wild website, and follow along on Instagram @lola_and_wild.
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