Faire Partners with SHOPPE BLACK in Support of Black-Owned Firms
SHOPPE BLACK, an internet directory and content platform, was founded in 2015 by Philadelphia-based husband-and-wife group, Tony Lawson and Shantrelle Lewis. What began as a response to customer demand for encouraging Black-owned companies after the shooting of Mike Brown, has now evolved to profiling and sharing thousands of companies and entrepreneurs from New York to Nigeria, all in the name of celebrating Black business excellence.
Tony and Shantrelle concentrate on creating and curating content associated with Black business ownership and Black culture in the worldwide diaspora. Five years in the making, SHOPPE BLACK is currently planning to expand into consulting services that will offer Black-owned companies and professionals with access to capital, branding, electronic marketing, and customer experience instruction.
Our products:
We are thrilled to be partnering with SHOPPE BLACK to advance our shared objective of encouraging and promoting minority-owned companies through a new curated set on Faire. We connected with Tony to hear more about his inspirational story.
Faire: Tell us a bit about how you began SHOPPE BLACK. What were you doing before?
Tony Lawson: My degree is in marketing from Howard University in Washington, D.C. My work experience was largely in sales and marketing for hardware and software technology firms. My spouse, Shantrelle, was a curator for the arts. We parlayed those experiences into construction SHOPPE BLACK in 2015, around the time of the police shooting of Mike Brown.
We kept seeing online that people wanted to store and encourage Black entrepreneurs, but they did not know how to seek out alternative Black-owned brands or companies. Shopping Black was something my wife and I were doing and curious in. It wasn't tough for us to begin by producing a Facebook page with lists of Black businesses that individuals could support. The response was amazing. Over the first few weeks, one of our posts went viral following being shared on a popular site, and the Facebook group blew up. Not lots of people were doing exactly what we were doing at the moment, and we'd style -- we had the look, the feel and the ideal content.
We immediately formed a website to share all our lists and spotlights on Black companies that customers could support across different businesses -- from restaurants to gyms to stores. There was such a desire that we believed we could turn this into something more valuable. According to Shantrelle's history as a curator and my business acumen, we decided to create a website that promotes international Black entrepreneurship that would be a excellent resource for consumers who wish to encourage those businesses.
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Faire: What did it take to get things off the floor?
TonyWe already had experience building our personal websites. We created the site pretty quickly after we moved viral, and then we began building a social media after. But once we built out our email list, that was the game changer. It grew organically from the virality of our posts. We now have over 100,000 subscribers as a result of great SEO plus organic word-of-mouth in the customers in our ecosystem.
We still have a fairly small team to this day. My son and daughter help us here and there with data entry. We occasionally hire freelancers from Upwork, based on what has to be done. I also brought on among my buddies as a company operations supervisor to tighten things up on the rear end. While I concentrate on marketing and large picture strategy, Shantrelle focuses on design and aesthetic, and he brings the operations experience. I am a big believer in not being the smartest person in the area so that you may always continue to learn from those around you.
Faire: What's been the biggest challenge as you started? Have there been some surprising lessons learned?
Tony: For us it has been a struggle to keep up with the need to find out more on Black-owned businesses. We've got a set schedule for articles, but we also have to be fairly flexible so that if something happens in the news, we could correct. While we could have construction, as a media-driven company, having the ability to put content out more often would be useful. However, it's also a balance of quality over quantity.
A lesson I have learned is to not do too much at the same time. I don't have to be on five more social networking platforms, or pressure myself to put out 100 spotlights on companies weekly. Slow, slow growth is far better than shooting for the stars and fizzling out.
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Faire: Why is it important to you to concentrate on highlighting smaller independent companies and entrepreneurs?
Tony: I always root for the underdog, the group that nobody is hoping to win. I look at small companies and Black businesses that way too -- historically and now they face more challenges in establishing and growing, whether that is banking or access to funding, or the resources to climb. It is important for me to utilize the tools I have in my limited capacity to help them succeed -- if that is tapping my system to connect them with somebody who may assist their company, or doing something like sharing and encouraging their brand.
Entrepreneurship is the most viable vehicle for wealth creation in the Black community. For the Black community to improve their economic position, I believe greater emphasis has to be placed on entrepreneurship -- and also the way to create the Black entrepreneur successful. That's my kind of activism. I love to do things behind the scenes to change change the very best way I can.
Faire: What's the most rewarding part of your work?
Tony: Hearing success stories from the companies we feature. They reach out to us I'll check back in with them to see how things are going. It is really humbling and rewarding to know that we are helping people. We have heard from companies whose sales took off after being showcased and it changed their entire family -- that is really powerful.
I also love to learn how excited customers get about finding our website and our resources. After we featured a girl in South Africa who makes swimming caps for girls with Black hair, a reader shared with me that she was going swimming for the first time in ten years.
It is all about helping people achieve their personal goals -- if you are a business owner looking to increase visibility and sales, or a consumer searching for ways to support Black businesses.
Faire: Tell us about one of your favorite companies or entrepreneurs you have highlighted.
Tony: That is like choosing a favorite child, it is impossible! But lately we featured the story of a girl who owns two gas station franchises in Texas. In one of them she's a convenience store where she shares a Black-owned wine manufacturer . Sales have been through the roof since she began stocking them -- tens of thousands of cases and bottles within days. As a Black woman, she wanted to encourage another Black-owned organization, and it is a terrific partnership for both of them.
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Faire: What is your expectation for the future of SHOPPE BLACK?
Tony: I need SHOPPE BLACK to be a resource which helps level the playing area. I need shopping Black to be a lifestyle, something which is merely natural rather than forced or a burden.
I also wish to scale and replicate our efforts in different countries. We're mostly focused on america, but I would like to be able to do this in places like France, Germany, and Nigeria. In Nigeria, where you would think shopping Black is a lot more common, Nigerian business owners are in fact getting closed out of the sector as more foreigners move in the country and begin their own businesses.
I wish to enable a small business scale, nationally, and internationally. That ultimately leads to them providing jobs and improving the communities they're in. There are a great deal of positive things that happen when a community is thriving and doing well -- more money for education and social programs. These things are beneficial for everybody -- a rising tide raises all ships.
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