CLOSING SIDEWAYS SALE
50% OFF EVERYTHING
We are closing our ecommerce stores in New Zealand and Australia to focus solely on manufacturing for wholesale and ecommerce in the USA.
2025 UPDATE: We are closing up/down/sideways!
We’re shifting gears and changing how we do things. The bad news is that our e-commerce in NZ and Australia is closing. The good news is that we are focusing all our time, money and energy on scaling up our operations in Kabul to supply for wholesale only.
Click to read Cécile Meier's article: Ethical Christmas businesses making a mark in challenging conditions
It’s been a tough year with multiple setbacks for us. As a Christmas business with only 8 weeks a year to trade, it’s a tough business model that balances on a precipice at the best of times. But with multiple hurdles thrown our way, combined with a bad economy where people are struggling to buy a gift, let alone the wrapping to put it in, it means we haven’t made enough cash to invest into producing more stock for e-commerce. This is because we need every cent (and more) to meet the demand in the USA where we are very thankful that the demand for our reusables is very high. (One order alone is more than twice as big as what we would produce for NZ and Australia combined).
As a niche company with a niche product that is specifically designed to be used for decades and not re-purchased year after year, we need a bigger market. Our hairy audacious goal of ending the wrapping paper industry is still there! We have hundreds of thousands of reusable gift bags in circulation in NZ and Australia with tens of thousands of Christmas crackers NOT going to landfill but being packed away for the years ahead, but there is still a long way to go.
This year, we used Pakistan as a “back up” in case things went awry in Afghanistan. (As a hostile, highly dangerous country with terrorism and the Taliban on your doorstep every day, you need balls of steel to operate there. I’m very proud to say that both Rahila and I possess a pair and they’re rather large.) To mitigate the challenges in Afghanistan, approximately 30% of our stock was made in Pakistan which backfired in the most spectacular ways imaginable. The quality was so bad it all had to be sold as seconds or sent directly to the recycling centre. To top it off, they were three months late in delivery so we had to pay huge airfreight costs only for the product to land and realise it was unsellable. Needless to say, Pakistan is now completely cut out of the picture and 100% of our manufacturing will be in Kabul where Rahila has full quality control.
Our commitment to the women of Afghanistan is stronger than ever as we increase the size of the team. We are also developing a non-profit side project to bring donors on board who can fund sewing machines and training for highly vulnerable women so they can learn to sew and move into paid work with us. A lot of our women this year were sitting at a sewing machine for the first time and sometimes that showed in the stitching so we want to up the skill level, provide more jobs and get as many women into secure, sustainable livelihoods as possible. Although I have owned this business for four years, the humanitarian sector is my natural habitat and I am a better fit at this end of operations. Who knows, maybe some lovely angel will come along and buy our ecommerce business and carry it on??
To all our lovely loyal customers we want to say a huge thank you!
Your support over the last four years has been amazing. Please feel free to stock up on all our bags, crackers, crowns and snap packs now as we are closing our doors here by January 30th.
Lastly, if you would like to support women in Afghanistan, please consider a donation to our sewing machine fund.
Lots of love
Emma and Rahila
Greetings from Kabul!
We have moved all our manufacturing to Kabul, Afghanistan. This was partly a business decision because it reduces our costs so we can make our product more affordable for you, but mostly a heart decision because that's who we are.
Our head of production, Rahila, who has worked for us for the last three years has returned to Kabul to set up our factory where we employ vulnerable women who are experiencing immeasurable hardship. I lived there in 2004-2006 as a humanitarian so I know the people and landscape really well -- hence my ongoing relationship with the Afghan community.
Each morning there is a line of over 100 people waiting outside in the hope of getting work. It is heartbreaking to turn people away when we have the work but lack the machinery to employ them.
In short, we have run out of money. We need another 100 sewing machines and 25 solar panels. City power only comes on for 3 hours a day in Kabul so you either run a diesel generator or get solar. Guess which one we chose?
Each machine can provide an income for upto 4 women as they can sew all hours of the day and work their schedules around family.
We are asking for donations to help us get there. As a business, not a charity, we can't give you a tax rebate and we will have to pay GST on what you give but 100% of the balance will go to Kabul.
Please select an amount you can donate below. If you donate $500 you will receive a free box of crackers!
Thank you from the bottom of our hearts!