Hand & Land Takes A Hands-On Approach To Retailing Green Beauty In A Kansas City Suburb

In cities and towns across the country, small green beauty retail gems are popping up. Hand & Land is one such gem. Opened by thirtysomething cousins Jessica Moler and Nicole Lobdell in 2015, the Leawood, Kan., store has cultivated charm and accessibility to cater to shoppers unfamiliar with clean beauty as well as those well-schooled in botanical brews. “It has a feminine spirit and is very welcoming. People always tell us how relaxing it is. It’s very grounded,” says Moler. “That has a lot to do with the plants incorporated in the products and the conscious approach taken to produce them.” In an extensive interview, she filled Beauty Independent in on Hand & Land’s space, rising trends, the brand discovery process, holiday season success, business practices she’d like to see shift, the upcoming onslaught of conglomerates marketing natural merchandise and her appreciation of the present moment.

What were you doing before Hand & Land?

I guess I’m a person with many passions. I studied child and family development in college. Right after college, I moved abroad and taught in Germany for five years, and I traveled around. From there, I went to Australia and did organic farming, and worked for different coffee shops. In 2014, I moved back to the U.S. and started working on Hand & Land.

How did the concept for Hand & Land come about?

When I was living overseas, I would come back and visit, and I would hang out with my cousin. We would get together, have beers and a joke about starting a business when I moved back home. We thought maybe we would open a coffee shop or cocktail bar. We had many ideas. I had seen so many cool things abroad, and I wanted to bring them back to Kansas City, but we were a bit all over the place. Then, we got real with ourselves and asked, “What are we most passionate about?” We were cleaning up our skincare routines. We were making our own products, and experimenting with different salves and lotions. We thought, “Why don’t we make our product line? Or should we collect all these amazing brands that are surfacing and carry them under one roof here in Kansas City?”

How did you pick a location?

It was easy and effortless. I think that’s how I knew we were on the right path. We did a lot of field research, and we looked at the demographics of different areas in Kansas City. We ended up going to an affluent, suburban neighborhood in Leawood. There’s a Whole Foods and a Trader Joe’s. We found a darling little shopping center that reminded me of Europe because it has foot paths and is lined with trees. We ended up in a 400-square-foot space, and we were originally looking for a space that was double the size, but it’s been perfect. Had we been any bigger, it might have been too much. It has taken us time to gain awareness and educate people. Plus, our products are pretty small, so we would have had to double the inventory.

What is Hand & Land like?

We don’t only have skin, bath and body, and hair care. We have plant-based cleaners and accessories. There are a lot of natural elements in the shop. We designed it ourselves and used knotty alder wood shelving. We have driftwood we collected ourselves, and a wild rattan ball my cousin found at a secondhand shop. It’s basically vines that were molded into a ball and was the first piece we ever got. Because the shop is so small, we have a limited amount of shelf space to work with. We have a table at the front. A couple of times a year, we put out the sales stuff. Otherwise, our new items are displayed on the front table. We like to keep it fresh and switch it around. We try to do that every four to six weeks. We have tried different ways of merchandising, and it currently works best to do it by category.

What’s the core mission?

We want to provide high-quality sustainable and herbal formulations in skincare and hair care, and make them easily accessible to people in our community.

Who is the Hand & Land shopper?

The majority of our customers are women. They make up 90% of our customers, and they range between 30- and 50-years-old. Our community is a very supportive community. It’s a playground for entrepreneurs. It’s really economical to start a business, and everyone supports each other, which is really incredible. I’ve heard from a lot of transplants that it isn’t competitive here. We try to collaborate. I think Kansas City has been kind of stale for a while, and there’s been a resurgence of various urban communities. There’s a lot happening right now. People are yearning for something different.

How do you discover brands?

We use social media a lot. Instagram is our BFF. We look to different bloggers and green events. If we can’t make it to an event ourselves, we look online and see who’s attending the event. We also go to a local craft shows.

How do you prefer brands pursue Hand & Land?

The more personalized, the better. I prefer when somebody comes to the store or sends us an email that hasn’t been copied and pasted with the name changed or they pursue us in such a way that explains what makes their brand and products different, and why we should be excited about their line. Also, I like them knowing something about our shop and not just saying, “Hey, we love your shop,” but giving us an example of why.

What are four bestselling brands at Hand & Land?

Josh Rosebrook, Indie Lee, Little Barn Apothecary and a local company, Wild Wash Soap Co.

What are bestselling products?

Beauty tools like body brushes, Gua Sha and the beauty roller do really well. We have a hard time finding authentic jade, though. A lot of times it’s serpentine, so we stick with rose quartz for our beauty tools. Josh Rosebrook’s Nutrient Day Cream is a superstar, and other bestsellers are Little Barn Apothecary’s Honeysuckle and Grapefruit Body Oil, and Agent Nateur’s deodorant.

What’s your top beauty category by sales, and what percentage does it make up of your business?

It’s skin care, and it’s about 18% of our sales. Skin, bath and body, home and accessories are all pretty close. We have an eclectic mix.

What are the keys to a brand developing a long-term relationship with you?

Consistency, staying up to date and having quality customer service. We love having trainings and frequent communication. There’s a balance, too. You don’t want to be pestered every week about placing an order.

What quantities do you like to bring in from a brand?

It depends on how many SKUs they produce. We carry Aztec Healing Clay, and that’s the only product we bring in from them, and we bring in cases at a time. For a larger line, we feel most comfortable bringing in bestsellers or products to address gaps we have. We introduce a brand to our customers and see how it moves. Once it moves, we bring in more. When we brought on Josh Rosebrook, we brought in a few SKUs at a time and, then, added more. We are a small business and can’t afford a 2,000 [piece] minimum with a brand we’ve never tried. That’s a huge risk for us. It makes sense for us to just bring in a few.

What’s something that you wish brands would do more of to improve their business at your store?

If the minimum requirements for the initial order and even after the initial order were lower, I think that would help our business. It seems to be counterproductive to be like, “Hey, if you don’t spend this amount of money, we are not going to work with you.” I feel like money is money. If a customer comes in and only wants to spend $10, am I going to turn them away?

What margins do you usually take?

50%

How did the holiday season go for you?

This was our third holiday season, and it was a completely different ballgame from the previous ones. We were a lot more prepared. Because it’s such a niche market and a lot of the products are made to order, we have to be prepared as far as September or October. We started building our inventory so that, when November and December hit, we had enough items in stock for people to choose from. Out of all the lessons I’ve learned, one of the biggest ones is that inventory is your success. If you have too much, it’s stale. It sits there, and you are losing money. If you don’t have enough, you can’t meet your goals. It’s a delicate balance. Last year, we stepped outside of our comfort zone to get people’s attention. With all the big-box stores, as a small business, you need to let people remember you’re there, and tell them about the personalized shopping experience you offer. We did lots of emails, social media, promotions and events. We tried to remember what our customers like and told them when it was in. It was cringeworthy, but it worked. They don’t get from the big stores.

How’s business doing?

We are pretty ecstatic. Our business grew 55% last year, and we are forecasted to do about the same this year. Having a better gauge on inventory has really helped. When we first started, for about a year-and-a-half, we didn’t have any sales because we thought it would diminish the brand. I think it was also a moral thing. We didn’t want to partake in the consumerist mayhem. We thought, “We’re running a sustainable business, and are trying to get people on board with using less and recycling more,” but you can’t run a retail business with items that have been sitting there for nine months. It’s not feasible. We had to let that go, and we realized that there are some customers that are only sales shoppers.  Now, we have opened up our business to them.

What are your sales tactics now?

If something has been on the shelf for 90 days or more, we mark it down 15% to 25%. If it is still there weeks later, we mark it down more. There are some things we have had to mark down to $1. We have another promotion called Detox Swap. You can bring in an old product and swap it out for a non-toxic product, and get a discount. It’s a win-win. We are doing that all year. Our followers may have already made the switch, but we are hoping they’ll get their friends interested.

Have you made another change that’s made Hand & Land more successful?

We keep the store fresh so the customer who comes in every couple of weeks sees something new. Switching the store around is a really easy trick of the trade.

What have you learned about what it takes to make it as a retailer today?

It’s not like if you build it, they will come. You have to work hard at maintaining relationships. You have to do events to draw people in. People are craving personal experiences. It gives them a sense of community. It feels good to see a familiar face and, with us, there’s a personal touch. We may give a hand massage or extras with a purchase like a crystal or sample. They don’t have that experience online through a computer screen. There’s also a lot of education involved especially in a green beauty space that’s evolving so quickly. As a business owner, there’s efforts you have to make to balance your personal and business life, and education. You have to divide the time well between them.

What’s a trend you’re seeing right now that’s really captivated your consumer base?

Our customers are really into beauty tools. We sold a ton of different beauty tools over the holidays. They make great gifts, and they’re at a really great price point. They’re effective, and you see results immediately. The other thing we can barely keep in stock is elderberry juice. We have a local company that supplies it, and it’s a great formulation. It’s cold and flu season, and I guess people are looking for alternatives [to traditional remedies]. I think that’s a trend that’s going to continue and may carry into our medicinal mushrooms, tonics and elixirs.

What trend do you wish would go away?

The idea that there are different skin types and the hype that goes into having oily skin, dry skin or combination skin. When you are working with herbal extracts, they target everything at once. You don’t need something special for your skin type. Now, there are definitely times when you are working through a skin condition, and there is something that can treat that issue, but, as a whole, people think there’s something wrong with their skin due to skin types. I think that’s why I have a problem with them. We have been conditioned to view our skin through targeted marketing messages like skin types and even anti-aging.

What changes do you see happening in the green beauty segment that could affect you?

Bigger brands are going to jump on board. The industry giants are going to respond to what people are demanding. They are wanting more transparency and cleaner products. Because they have resources, there’s going to be a wider range of products available at lower cost. We might have to become more creative. There will remain an educational component, and we are going to still have to be mindful of our planetary resources. As demand gets higher, we don’t want to strip the earth of its resources. That’s what we tend to do. If one thing becomes popular, it gets wiped out. We need to be very cautious of that.

You run Hand & Land with your cousin. Do you split responsibilities?

We try to capitalize on what both of us are skilled at and what we feel comfortable doing. She would never do a press interview. That’s her worst nightmare. She said from the get-go, “I will not be on TV. That’s all you Jess.” I took that, and she does a lot of behind-the-scenes clerical work, and she balances the bills. She’s been meeting with our accountant a lot lately. I do a lot of the marketing, but we do share roles. When it comes to merchandising, if she’s feeling more creative, she will take the lead. If I’m feeling more creative, I will. We both do the ordering. We have clear communication, and that’s really important for business. I don’t know how other people do it, but we have to be on the same page. We won’t do anything without the other’s approval.

What goals do you have for Hand & Land going forward?

Because the shop is doing well, I’m really trying to step back and embrace this moment. I’m so thankful for everything it has provided, and I want to rest in that space a bit. I’ve had so many goals. I’ve pushed myself. It’s nice to take a breather. We have been working on launching a Hand & Land product line that will come out some time in 2018 after we released a few products in 2017. We have bigger goals long-term, but I’m really allowing them to happen if there’s an alignment in the future. I think the shop has been successful because it’s done its own thing, and I’ve followed it.