Social Action at Shop Good
Our Progress, by our Founder, Leah.
As Founder of Shop Good, I have made the commitment to continually update our community on the progress we have made to become a more equitable, inclusive and anti-racist brand.
Our world continues to be a difficult one to navigate. Intolerance and division feels like it is at an all time high. The inflation-driven economy perpetuates stress for all, especially underserved or minority communities. And our individual rights are being challenged in many ways, shapes and forms.
And as we navigate these difficult times together, as a business owner I am increasingly inspired and driven to continue offering a safe, inclusive and welcoming space for my community and my team alike.
Our work in social action and inclusion showcases our efforts to employ this type of positive environment; one that I hope will serve to uplift you, inspire you or care for you.
Our work is in increasing awareness of past and present social injustices, while influencing our community and the beauty + skincare industry, to do better when it comes to inclusivity and equality.
I'm proud of our team's consistency, efforts and unwavering motivation to take this work on. Some of the key highlights in our efforts are as follows:
- Ongoing focus on internal education in customer service diversity trainings.
- Continued buying and assortment filters; seeking out and prioritizing minority-owned and BIPOC-owned brands.
- Marketing efforts focused around diversity, inclusive language and our commitment to showcasing real skin versus unrealistic and unhealthy beauty standards.
- Continued monetary donations providing exposure + support to local and national causes we believe in.
- An unwavering commitment to never stop evaluating and improving the way we operate, market, hire, invest and communicate to our community.
Thank you for sharing in our ongoing journey and inspiring us to continue growing and learning. Shop Good’s goal continues to be resolute: to create an environment and harness a community that is compassionate, welcoming and inclusive with an unwavering commitment to making healthy living inclusive, accessible, and FUN for ALL.
I am so grateful you are here, joining us in Shop Good’s mission and our belief that, collectively, we can not only inspire and create change, but in turn, inspire our best and healthiest selves.
Read on to learn the details of our ongoing work towards this mission.
Assortment
Aligning with our mission to make healthy living more accessible, we prioritize onboarding new brands offering a range of accessible price points, while never sacrificing quality.
Our complexion and color assortment offers all available shade ranges in order to provide optimal color matches and effectively service our Black community and all people of color. If ever a shade range feels incomplete or misrepresentative, we directly communicate with our brand partners to express concern and push for more inclusivity in their offerings, or will flat out not offer the brand in our stores.
We continue to prioritize the growing our representation of BIPOC on our shelves. Before onboarding these brands, we take critical time to research, test and get to know each founder that pushed beyond the barriers working against them in their white-dominated industry, as well as ensure it fills a void in our assortment, further ensuring a successful business relationship for both parties. Our minority-owned representation grew from 13% in June of 2022 to 25% in June of 2023.
To make supporting and shopping these brands easier for our customers, we’ve added a ‘BIPOC-Owned Brands’ tab on our online shop’s navigation.
Internal Company Culture
We are committed to making Shop Good an incredible place to work, learn and grow and a place where a diverse group of individuals feel welcome, valued and excited to join in on our mission.
In order to provide a culture that prioritizes inclusivity, diversity and anti-racism, we prioritize internal conversations around social equity. Our team works to improve company culture, execute new social equity initiatives, align on local and national organizations to support and to continually evaluate the social impact of our brand.
We encourage holding space for all employees to voluntarily + openly share concerns or ideas relating to social equity.
Our Shop Good Library houses an assortment of titles ranging from anti-racist teachings to indigenous perspectives on ecological consciousness. These books are able to be checked out by employees at any time.
And our dedicated Social Action slack channel is utilized by our team to share articles, podcasts and more, relating to the ongoing learning and un-learning of the current constructs of our society.
These all exist to encourage open dialogue, harbor a safe space to share and resources for continued education and awareness.
Training and Education
As curators of beauty and skincare products, it is our honor and responsibility to appropriately support + service customers of all colors and skin types across all genders. We integrate critical employee trainings and ongoing education in order ensure our team is equipped to provide exceptional service to each individual that walks into our store. These trainings are also in place to facilitate an increase awareness of white privilege and the history of the systemic racism that exists in the beauty industry, so that we may fully appreciate the journey of marginalized groups. Trainings we’ve provided for our team include:
- Skin of Color (including appropriate consultation, common concerns, treatment and product recommendations for BIPOC skin.)
- Color Matching for BIPOC skin
- Gender Inclusivity Training
- Equity and Whiteness at Work
- Haircare 101: A Hair + Scalp Masterclass
- Makeup and Color Matching w/ Focus on Undertones
- Customer service trainings with diversity in mind.
Additionally, during all internal brand trainings, we encourage each of our brands to infuse applicable education around colored skin and all hair types, allowing us to better service and recommend products to our BIPOC customers.
Content and Marketing
Our marketing team is committed to continue, and constantly work to improve, our brand’s inclusive approach, voice and collection of imagery in order to support and speak to all races and genders.
We pursue diverse models in our brand shoots to ensure all skin tones are represented in our marketing.
In 2020, we halted on the retouching of models’ skin in our professional photography with a goal to show real skin and work to eradicate the unrealistic expectations and stigmas of the beauty industry that say “good skin” equates to power. Rather, we hope to promote deep self love, without defining ourselves by the state of our skin.
As in-person events return at Shop Good, we are committed to showcasing diverse points of view across health, wellness and beauty through seeking out minority and under-represented speakers and event leaders.
Sustainability Initiatives
A focus on sustainable operations and business practices supports the health and wellness of all marginalized communities around the world. As we assess Shop Good’s footprint, we’ve made adjustments to our suppliers, our in-shop offerings and partnerships in order to do our part in protecting Mother Earth and thus, lifting others up.
In 2021, we transitioned to eco-friendly and sustainable shipping supplies, divesting out of supplier partnerships we do not believe align with our company ethos. We reinvested our shipping and supply budget into recyclable and post-consumer waste materials with a company who is working to put less waste in our landfills.
We are proud of our in-shop recycling program, The Clean Cut. Thanks to your participation, we’ve saved over 24k beauty + skincare bottles and jars from landfills to date.
We assess each brand’s sustainability practices prior to bringing them onto our shelves and ensure they are making sustainable efforts across their packaging, ingredient sourcing, advocacy for human rights and more.
We have transitioned 65% of all in-store makeup tester applicators from plastic to bamboo and compostable materials.
Our eco-friendly packaging option gives our online customers the ability to opt-out of superfluous packing and marketing materials in their Shop Good shipments. Check it out the next time you order at Shop Good online!
We are constantly evaluating how we can improve and lessen the impact we make on our planet and on the health and wellness of underserved populations.
Monetary Contributions
As a small business, we are proud of the monetary contributions we made - and we hope to see these increase as we grow, too.
Paired with our previous ‘Round Up For Change’ effort, and thanks to your generosity and support, we have donated over $13,000 across local and national organizations since 2020. Some of these organizations include:
Open Door Policy
At Shop Good, we want everyone who walks in our stores to feel celebrated and represented. In order to continue our work, your opinions and feedback truly matters to us as we work towards a more just, inclusive and compassionate world.
We are always listening to what you have to say and we encourage feedback from you – including questions, concerns and what you would like to see more of or less of. Feel free to drop us a line at hello@shop-good.co and let us know your thoughts.
