I have been thinking a lot about the changing landscape of small business and how much has shifted in just one generation. My own story stretches back five generations, and it helps explain why I do the work I do today. I wanted to share a bit of that history, and why supporting local businesses matters now more than ever.
Where It All Began
Five generations ago my great great grandfather Herman Schwarz opened H. Schwarz and Sons, a hardware store in the heart of Napa, California. They supplied agricultural goods to the vineyards of Napa Valley. The hardware store was later taken over by my great grandfather, Max. His daughter, my grandmother Minnie Schwarz, married Charlie Larson, whose family owned a hardware store in Vallejo. Together they moved to San Francisco and opened Seabright Hardware in the Sunset District of San Francisco.
My grandmother Minnie was central to running the store. Customers often came in specifically to ask her what they needed for their projects. At that time hardware stores were much more expansive than they are today. Many carried fine china, household staples, even toys. My parents’ handmade German Christmas carousel came from that hardware store. It is rare to find that kind of quality and experience now.
A Family Shaped by Woodworking and Tools
My dad studied to be a woodshop teacher, but California cut the woodshop programs shortly after he earned his degree. When his father passed, he returned home to help in the family hardware store. Eventually he took over the shop, but he never lost his love of woodworking.
Fifty years ago it was incredibly difficult to find quality woodworking tools. There were a few catalogs or a traveling salesman selling from the trunk of a car, but that was about it. So my dad sought out the best tools he could find from the United States, Europe and Japan, and began selling them in the shop. Other hardware stores wanted them too, so he started bringing in products for them. Before long that part of the business became bigger than the hardware store itself and he closed the shop and sold only wholesale to focus on supplying fine tools to stores across the country.
I grew up in that world. I worked with hardware stores big and small in every corner of the country. I toured factories in Europe, met toolmakers around the world, and visited shops from major cities to the smallest towns. We educated our customers on the quality of the tools so they could help their customers choose the right tool for the job, and we only sold products we knew would hold up. When the world started sourcing everything in China, we made a choice not to, continuing to support the craftsmen who made these quality tools, even though we knew we could not compete on price.
The Rise of Big Box Stores and the Internet
First came the big box home centers. They would enter a community with prices too tempting for consumers to ignore until the local hardware store closed, and then the prices would quietly rise again. We watched this pattern repeat itself many times over in towns across the country.
As the small businesses we depended on disappeared, we ended up selling some products to the big box stores. The personal relationship was absent and strict policies were in place. If a barcode did not scan correctly, we were fined. If a customer abused a product and returned it, we had to take it back. My favorite example was a beautiful Japanese woodworking saw returned with bright red plastic embedded in its broken teeth, labeled defective, and our small family business had to absorb the cost on a large scale.
Next came the internet. One of our customers was a mail order tool catalog in North Dakota that sold their business to an online bookseller expanding into general merchandise: Amazon. When Amazon took over, we worked with a real buyer, a person who built relationships and thoughtfully chose products. Eventually Amazon launched third party selling, and many of our customers joined the platform and did well for a while.
Over time the relationship changed. Instead of one knowledgeable buyer, a team at Amazon would identify which products were performing best for third party sellers and would then purchase those items directly, taking that business away from the small sellers who had helped build the demand. Today, Amazon is such a force in the market that they refuse price increases from their suppliers, knowing many could not survive without their orders.
The Beginning of Minnie and Moon
I started Minnie and Moon 12 years ago. It began when a connection in England asked if I would be their United States distributor. For many reasons it felt like the right moment to branch out on my own.
I named the company after my Grandma Minnie, who ran the hardware store, and my Grandma Moon, who descended from Danish homesteaders on the California coast. That side of the family was always intentional and thoughtful with their resources. The values from both lineages shaped the foundation of this business.
As a consumer one of my biggest frustrations is not knowing whether I am paying for true quality or a big marketing budget. I wanted to build a company where people could count on useful, functional, well made products at a fair price. My product line has evolved, but my intention and my standards have not.
The Challenge of Being Small in a Fast Changing World
The world moves even faster now and keeping up is harder than ever (Yikes, I keep dating myself and will likely continue to for the rest of this blog). Vendors go out of business overnight. You build a presence on wholesale platforms only to watch them suddenly close. The most reliable wholesale option these days seems to be Faire, but they take more than 25 percent of a wholesale sale. Prices would need to inflate dramatically just to break even. And with these online marketplaces there is no personal relationship between the brand and the shop. And now with tariffs, even USA made products are feeling the impact, because raw materials are global these days. I am trying to absorb what I can, but that cannot continue forever.
Honestly I am not sure if Minnie and Moon will make it through this current phase. Even my family’s fifty year old business, which has survived countless shifts, is struggling.
It is almost ironic that I run a product based business because I am an environmental minimalist at heart. I make most of my own gifts and purchase from local makers whenever possible. But just looking at my own community, this year alone we lost our independent art supply shop. There is no longer a reliable place to buy fabric, big box or small. And our local independent hardware store finally closed its doors.
I remember a time (Uh oh, the old lady is at it again) when you could walk into a hardware or fabric store and get expert help from someone passionate about their knowledge and their job. When the person pumping your gas filled your tires and topped off your windshield washer fluid. When every neighborhood had a butcher and a real bakery. That sense of service and skill is becoming rare.
Why Supporting Small Business Matters
I cannot stress enough how important it is to support locally owned restaurants and shops, to visit the farmers market, bakeries and makers.
Maybe just taking a pause before you click that BUY NOW button to see if there is a small business in your community offering the same thing can make a real difference. There is a high cost to the low prices offered by large companies, and like a frog in slowly boiling water we have accepted those costs without realizing how much we have lost.
Supporting our local businesses provides meaningful work, investment in our cities and towns, and builds connection and community. It is priceless.