The Happily Grey Store Turns ONE!!!!

In January 2020 we opened our doors!! It was such a surreal experience. Opening the store was seriously one of the scariest things I’ve ever done in my career thus far, but the project that I was the most excited about! We had a really huge, fun grand opening event (remember pre-COVID days?!), and it was amazing getting to see my vision come to life after years of dreaming about it!

We closed the store in March, just a couple months after we opened, to keep everyone safe during the pandemic. You guys, it was a terrifying decision to shut down. There was SO much uncertainty!! We had a few things on our online store but not everything, and we really weren’t planning for online sales to be a large part of the business, but we had to pivot. About a week after we made the decision to shut down the storefront we decided we needed to embrace the online business and adapt to the way the world was changing. We shifted our entire business model and future plans for the store, and once we decided to fully open the online store it was an all hands on deck moment for theteam!! We had to divide and conquer to get all of our store inventory added online. It was a huge team effort for sure and took everyone’s help to get us up an running. I am SO thankful for such an amazing team that we could get this launched so quickly for you guys! It’s been one of the best decisions we could have made and now we are able to offer so many more of you access to shop the Happily Grey Store!

June was a really big month for us. We decided it was safe enough in Nashville to re-open the store!! Around the time we re-opened, the growing civil rights movement really started taking off across the country following the tragic death of George Floyd. Our team was collectively so impacted and we wanted to make change where we could. We started by taking the 15% pledge to carry more Black owned businesses in store, like Oma and Studio Nom, some of the Black owned brands we currently carry in store. We plan to continue working towards fulfilling the pledge in 2021 by adding more brands this year. We also launched Amplify, a platform to highlight Black creators and business owners’ experiences in the form of a monthly blog series.

When we re-opened the store I really wanted to showcase some of my favorite designers that we don’t typically carry. Our first trunk show was hosted both in store and virtually and we featured Farm Rio, St. Holiday, and Shoana Joy, and I hope to host more trunk shows this year! Things in the store definitely slowed down over the summer but picked up online. I loved being able to offer new products to you guys while you were staying safe at home and shopping from a distance.

We launched our Signature Scent Candle when we first opened the store, but weren’t able to get restocked for months due to manufacturing shutdowns during the pandemic, so we had to pivot (once again – ha! ) and go a new direction. We decided to take time to redesign THE perfect candle to make it the besssst we could, and that’s what you can buy today! I love it sooo much and burn it whenever I can…seriously it’s always on candle rotation at home and in the office!

You guys our first Black Friday/Cyber Monday Sale was BETTER than we could have expected!! Given how the year had played out we kept our expectations low for our first holiday sale but you totalllyyy shocked us, and we are so grateful! We finished the year by surviving our first holiday season in retail and it was a whirlwind for sure but such a fun learning experience!

Throughout our first year as a store we hit SO many bumps along the way, a few hiccups here and there, and a LOT of pivoting and changing plans. We shipped over 3,000 orders, carried 96 different brands in store (!!!!!) , met so many of YOU at our grand opening event and in store (when it was safe to re-open our doors), learned a LOT, and cannot wait for year two!