It was near the end of 2007 that mother of two Susan Mey decided she needed to make changes in her life—and change she did.
She quit her six-figure position as president of Kodak Canada and the following year started up Green Cricket, an online retailer of environmental products for homes and businesses.
“I was traveling constantly, and with two young children at home it just seemed clear to me that I needed to change my lifestyle considerably,” she says.
In her efforts to use environmentally friendly household products and “green” her own lifestyle, Toronto-based Mey undertook much research. She soon discovered that a business opportunity existed in bringing “that kind of knowledge and research” she had conducted to others.
“I thought, if I could bring this all together and provide the research to people who wanted to shop this way, if we could make it affordable and convenient, I think a lot of people would buy into doing better in terms of green shopping.”
Mey found that locating products that are truly green took a lot of effort and that misinformation abounds about what is truly environmentally friendly and what isn’t. “Greenwashing is a real issue,” she says.
With Green Cricket, Mey has focused on making it easy and convenient for people to buy green while providing full disclosure about any product that may be “less green,” such as components in clothing that are made offshore.
“We take a lot of pride in the fact that we only sell made in Canada clothing, but of course the yoga wear, for example, is 70 percent bamboo and 30 percent organic cotton, and we don’t grow bamboo in Canada, so the yarn for those fibres comes from either China or Pakistan.”
Green Cricket offers a wide range of products—about 400 in all, including everything from toilet tissue and pet products to baby supplies, linens, toys, office supplies, gift baskets and clothing.
“The idea was that the site should have everything that a family might need,” says Mey.
Purchases of over $50 include free delivery in natural gas powered vehicles. The only foodstuffs offered by Green Cricket are tea, coffee and chocolate. The site also includes an informative “Ask an Expert” section.
Mey says she constantly receives useful feedback and product ideas from customers.
“We get moms who write and say. ‘I can’t find this for my children, yet I know it’s the best thing I should buy. Can you source it for us, and we will buy it on your website.’” So we chase down a lot of those requests for people.”
Green Cricket’s director of quality management is a PhD chemist who tests each product and assesses whether it should be carried on the website. Having found that some products which fit the green criteria simply didn’t work very well, Mey started her own line of cleaners and personal care products.
“We are pitching this to the mainstream audience, not the ardent environmentalists who already came before us and did a great job in blazing the trail. We want the rest of the population to live this way so these products need to be effective for people to use them,” she says.
Green Cricket had a large booth at the Green Living Show in Toronto recently, which generated much interest in its wide variety of products. Plans to expand include opening a warehouse in Vancouver and getting distribution going in the Lower Mainland, because, says Mey, web-based businesses have their limitations.
“The response has been very good, but the problem with any Internet-based business is awareness. Because we don’t have a physical store, we need to bring awareness to the mass population who we’re appealing to that we’re there.”
Green Cricket can be visited at www.greencricket.ca.
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