An interview with Fernseed founder Kristine Dang

Photos courtesy of Colin Vincent (Location: 3436 Dimond Avenue, Oakland, CA 94602)

Please describe Fernseed, and explain your personal mission: Fernseed is located in the Dimond District of Oakland. We offer stylish and affordable refab home furnishings, decor and gifts. As an eco-friendly home furnishing provider, we will also offer a selection of sustainable products that will help reduce consumption of virgin materials and waste. The eco-goal is to extend a product's life cycle, which naturally contributes to reducing waste. The use of non-virgin materials and products lowers the need for cutting new trees, mining, raw materials production and energy consumption. Our purpose is to retain, reuse, and regain. Our goal is 50% reclamation in any product we sell, including "as-is," second-hand items and recycled products.

Inside of Fernseed

What is your background and what lead you to open a retail store?  I was a consultant for Web 2.0 companies and specialty retailers. Prior to consulting, I was the founding merchant, creator of the name RedEnvelope, and Executive Vice President of Merchandising, Design and Creative Services. Over the 8 years at RedEnvelope, I had launched and managed merchandising, product design, sourcing, print creative services, web production, web management and corporate sales. Before RedEnvelope, I was a merchant for Williams-Sonoma, Macy’s, Sony and other specialty retailers based in the Bay Area.

What makes your business unique and sets you apart from your competition?  We are one of a few businesses branding second hand products. We source our products from popular resources such as garage sales, junk shops, dump piles, estate sales, family and friends, used goods sales, flea markets, and fund raisers. At present, the local community of Oakland, which we are so thankful for the generosity, has donated most of our paint supplies.

What are the advantages of going to Fernseed instead of a thrift shop?  Our products have been refurbished (we call it refab) or re-purposed. Many of our customers call our store “the land of sustainable imagination.” Our team does all the creative thinking and problem solving, designing these products especially for the consumer. In addition, we invest in professional upholstery services to provide beautiful furniture ready for immediate use. Thrift shops offer only as-is products, which most are not stylish, and discarding furniture that require refurbishing while we do not. We can see beauty in the simplest thing from a teacup, jar, poster and more, transforming the ridiculed to refab[ulous]!

Has the recession impacted your business, and if so, how have you adapted?  I believe Fernseed is a great alternative for shoppers affected by the recession. Our products can be up to 80% below market price, because we reclaim our products and use local services to refurbish. We work hard to keep our costs down. Where we can, we do the minor refurbishing in-house, minimizing the cost by reducing transportation costs and other service fees.

Re-purposed glass terrariums

Is there anything you wish people knew about your business that they probably don't know?  I think at our early stage, having people know we are present would be fabulous (laugher). We truly care about our customers and provide a wish list, which is simply a book where people can list what they are looking for. If we come across that item, we connect the desire and the fulfillment. If the option is there, we will let them choose their item before we refurbish them. For example, if a consumer wants a red lamp and we have three new lamps available, we will let them select the lamp they would like painted to fulfill their wish. Secondly, I would like people to know that we support local artists. Jeremiah Bal, our artist in residence, was the first person to give me a gift that was made of reclaimed material. Reclamation was his way of life, not a retail concept. I was lucky enough to receive that first seed of influence and I am fortunate to have him part of the start-up team. Lastly, we are launching an events calendar to feature new sustainable artists and to promote free workshops with local artisans showing customers how to refab their own things. We heavily promote reuse before recycle, and definitely to rethink before throwing things away.

What is one of your favorite stories about a customer experience in your store?  We have been very fortunate. All of our stories have been our favorite stories. We have experienced unbelievable support, praise and appreciation from every individual who has walked into our store. One of the most memorable was when a customer said out loud, “What is this? Oh, you sell pretty things.” Only to drop her jaw in shock when we explained that we offered mostly reclaimed products. Products that were considered trash that we’ve made functional and beautiful again. She couldn’t believe we were a second-hand store.