This week Al is back in Toronto at the very trendy Stackt Market to visit Chelsee Pettit, an anishinaabe member of aamjiwnaang First Nations and the founder of aaniin retail inc. aaniin started in 2021 as a streetwear brand and has grown quickly thanks their ambitious owner. Chelsee’s mission is to have a direct impact on the Indigenous economy through business, art and opportunities. This is their story.
You can learn more about aaniin at aaniin.shop.
Al Grego:
Hello everyone. I'm Al Grego and this is the Yes, We Are Open podcast. Toronto, Ontario, it's a warm late summer day in August, just a couple of weeks before I head on my trip to Eastern Canada. I'm walking north along Bathurst Street. To my left is a great view of Fort York National Historic site where British soldiers first Nations warriors and Upper Canadian militiamen stood together against the United States during their attempt to capture Toronto in the war of 1812. I then cross the Sir Isaac Brock Bridge, aka the Bathurst Street Bridge built in 1903. It crosses the railway corridor between Front Street and Fort York Boulevard offering a scenic view of Fort York on one side and the cityscape all around. Just beyond the bridge on the west side of Bathurst Street is Stackt market, a really cool indoor-outdoor cultural marketplace featuring a mix of shops, food vendors, a microbrewery, art installations, event spaces, park space with seating and great views of the city and much more, all built entirely with shipping containers. That's where I'm headed.
I've got some time before my interview, so I explore the market for a bit. I check out their anchor tenant, Blue Moon Brewery, one of my favorites. Some folks are playing pickleball on the court in front of the brewery. This market is what I would call highly Instagrammable. Everywhere I turn, there's an opportunity for a selfie, whether it's an art installation, the view or some of the beautifully delicious food from one of the various food vendors. I got lunch from one of those vendors, a Bulgogi King Bowl from Kong's Hot Tacos. It was so good. After my lunch, I finally make my way to the northwest corner of the market, through Courtyard one, under the Umbrella Sky Project to unit 5-105, a large triple-wide unit, and the location of this week's subject, Aaniin Retail Inc.
Chelsee Pettit:
Hello. How's it going?
Al Grego:
I'm well, how are you?
Chelsee Pettit:
Good.
Al Grego:
Chelsee?
Chelsee Pettit:
Yeah, nice to meet.
Al Grego:
Al. Nice to meet you too. This is a really cool spot.
Chelsee Pettit:
Thank you.
Al Grego:
I've never been here before.
Chelsee Pettit:
Oh, cool. Yeah, we've been at Stackts for a year. We actually started off as a small shipping container, two spaces down, and then we went to a double at the front of the street and then we're in a triple now.
Al Grego:
Wow. That's Chelsee, the owner. She gives me a quick tour of her store and right away she slips into story mode and I learned about the history and meaning behind the clothing, jewelry and makeup she sells, and the indigenous designers and artisans that she features.
Chelsee Pettit:
So [foreign language 00:02:59] actually means friend in Ojibwe and they're using...
Al Grego:
I immediately spot a T-shirt that I'll be purchasing for myself. If you have one of those black ones in large, I'll be taking one of those home.
Chelsee Pettit:
Yeah, definitely. We have so much in stock.
Al Grego:
After my tour is done, we set up at her front counter for her interview.
Chelsee Pettit:
My name's Chelsee Pettit. I'm an Anishinaabe member of Aamjiwnaang First Nations and the founder of Aaniin Retail Inc.
Al Grego:
When did you start Aaniin?
Chelsee Pettit:
So I started Aaniin in the summer of 2021 and I was actually just walking in the street in downtown Toronto when I thought I saw somebody wearing indigenous syllabics on their clothing and I felt the sense of inclusivity that I'd never felt before living in the city.
I just moved here in December of 2020 and it was during the pandemic, so it was very quiet. So I was thrilled to see somebody wearing indigenous syllabics on their clothing, but as I got closer, I realized it was actually just a triangle, so that sparked the idea to start an indigenous streetwear brand that uses the syllabics as the main design focus, and I named it Aaniin because aaniin means hello in Anishinaabe, which is the language that Ojibwe people use, and I basically just want to start the conversation on indigenous languages and create visibility for indigenous people all across Canada, 365 days a year.
Al Grego:
It makes for a great [inaudible 00:04:24], I got to say.
Chelsee Pettit:
Thank you. Yeah, actually it was really funny because when I picked the logo I had no clue that it was going to have a triangle in it. I just wanted to use the word aaniin because I just felt like it was a very good word to use as an introduction.
Al Grego:
It's pretty good.
Chelsee Pettit:
I grew up in Sarnia, Ontario. And when I was 18 I left to Ottawa to go to fashion school and I dropped out just after three months, couldn't afford to keep up with the program and I was also working part-time, but mostly full-time hours at the time. And then I just dropped out of school because I missed so many classes. I actually have 10 years of retail background. So I was a retail store manager for the last seven years at a few different companies and I was in charge of building very high performing teams. We were typically top 10 to top 5 across Canada within the corporate company with over 30 locations in Canada. So I knew that if I had a product, a brand, and I was there to sell it, I knew that I would be able to get it started.
Al Grego:
So why do that for somebody else if you can do it for yourself?
Chelsee Pettit:
Exactly.
Al Grego:
An indigenous fashion brand it marries two things that are near and dear to you. Obviously your indigenous beginnings and your love for fashion, that's great and all, but how do you get started?
Chelsee Pettit:
Yeah, so actually the whole triangle story happened on a Sunday afternoon and by Wednesday I had an entire drop shipping website up and running to test out my idea that people would be interested in seeing indigenous syllabics on the clothing. And in our first week we actually sold $3,000 right away. I didn't have a social media following, I wasn't running ads. I basically just put my experience of the triangle story on a post on Facebook and Instagram and it was shared pretty widely. So we had really good foot traffic the first day. I think we had 70 customers our first day live to our website. I was expecting to have maybe 15 to 20 people.
Al Grego:
So you did design your own clothing and how did you get it made?
Chelsee Pettit:
Basically after the drop shipping, I shut it down after one week because if I got $3,000 in my first week with no marketing, no foot traffic and no hype, I just popped it out of my head one day and just ran with it. I knew that I had something really special.
Al Grego:
That was your market test.
Chelsee Pettit:
Exactly.
Al Grego:
It worked.
Chelsee Pettit:
It did. So I basically shut down and used some of the money. I think I only made like $800 of profit after that, but I bought QR code labels from China. The first ones only went to the home page of my website, but now they all go to their own unique translation page. So I've built it up that way. But when I first got started, they just went to the home page of my website because for me, my mom is non-Indigenous and my dad is Ojibwe, so I'm always thinking if I do this, can other non-Indigenous people enjoy it and wear it too? And I know that my mom had a hesitation of being like, well, can I wear that? So I wanted to reassure non-Indigenous people that they can wear and support the garments with the QR code because it doesn't make them become the educator. It passes on the information for them.
Al Grego:
That's a great idea.
Chelsee Pettit:
So I was actually making it all in my kitchen.
Al Grego:
Amazing.
Chelsee Pettit:
I actually started with plain sweaters, so they were pretty costly, so I wasn't able to afford any minimum orders. So I basically just bought patches with an iron-on adhesive from China, QR codes, and I would actually iron them with a handheld iron in my kitchen. I would order whatever came in online as an order for that day. So if somebody ordered a medium green sweater, I would order it from the manufacturer. I was paying so much money, but at this point I just wanted to test what is this process like? Are people interested in this and is this something that I could eventually quit my job and start doing full-time?
Al Grego:
[inaudible 00:08:14].
Chelsee Pettit:
Yeah, exactly. I did my very first market here at Stackt and it was a backyard event, so it was called The Comeback. It was after COVID had finally lifted regulations. It was in October of 2021. So just a couple of months after I'd started the business and I had spent $1,200 of my own money developing inventory for this market, and we sold $4,000 in one weekend and I actually sold out. So I used that as a starting point to realize, okay, I can definitely push this another step forward. I actually went to 13 markets before Christmas, right after that first market that I did.
Al Grego:
You are right downtown Toronto.
Chelsee Pettit:
Yeah.
Al Grego:
Stackt Market, this is my first time here and it's a really trendy looking place.
Chelsee Pettit:
It is.
Al Grego:
Were you surprised at how well you were doing in downtown Toronto?
Chelsee Pettit:
I knew that it was something that Toronto was missing. So when that interaction happened on the street, I just felt like it was so cool that somebody thinks that indigenous languages were cool enough to wear in downtown Toronto. And because I love the look of syllabics and it was just really amazing to think that other people would enjoy them to the extent that they'd wear them on a daily basis. So I knew that there was some sort of market that was definitely not tapped into. And who else can do something like this? If another brand does it, it's pretty much cultural appropriation. So this to me is such a solid way to give back to indigenous people living in the city and artists that are inside of the space and basically just supporting indigenous businesses. People go out of their way to support made in Canada or just sustainable products, but this is a new sector that's not even tapped into yet.
So I had come up with a design actually when I was working my full-time job as a digital marketing associate. I was waiting for a customer at Starbucks and they were late and I just started thinking about how Toronto gets its name from the Mohawk word [foreign language 00:10:24], which actually means where the trees are standing in the water. So my design is the trees, is the Toronto skyline, and then the water reflection has the cityscape in it.
Al Grego:
That's really cool.
Chelsee Pettit:
So that's my bestseller, and I actually, as soon as I launched it, I made $15,000 our first release. Again, like no marketing, it was just putting a design on the website. I think it was all Photoshopped too, so it wasn't good marketing. I was just like, hey guys, this is my new sweater. This is what's going to be on it, and it's going to get printed in London, Ontario by Resonance Printing Company, that's also indigenous.
I have such an amazing community that I think that's why I feel so confident doing everything that I am doing because every single market that I went to, if I posted on social media, I'd have at least 8 to 10 customers there, and that was when I only had 1,000 followers on Instagram. I only had 80 sales at the time. So I knew that if I was able to bring people that I'd never met before out of the woodwork to come in, just say hello to me at a market that was nearby their house or maybe they're just visiting from out of town and they just saw that I was at a market nearby. All of those interactions I think led me to realize that no matter what I do, I always have a lot of people behind me.
Elle Yip:
Hi, my name is Elle Yip. So I'm the marketing lead for Aaniin Retail. I started interning with them actually in just this April, end of April. And after my internship was done, I'm now fully employed here.
Al Grego:
Oh, congratulations.
Elle Yip:
Thank you.
Al Grego:
Did you know anything about Aaniin before you started here?
Elle Yip:
When I was applying for my internships through my school, Aaniin was one of the brands that really stood out to me. The thing that makes Aaniin stand out from other fashion brands is that it builds an economy for Indigenous people. It's a fashion brand with a purpose. It brings out more awareness and visibility to syllabics. It really makes an impact in both fashion and just society in general.
Al Grego:
So after a few pop-up experiences, and that went really well, your grand opening was June 2023. That must've been a big next step for you. How'd it go?
Chelsee Pettit:
It went pretty well. So I had done $8,000 that day. We were expecting to do a little bit more, but actually Do West Fest was happening in Toronto the same day. But I mean the people who did come out, they were long-term customers of ours. They were friends of friends who knew about the grand opening from people who love our store. So we have great word of mouth.
Al Grego:
Would you say you've settled in? Are you confident that you've got a business model here that'll work?
Chelsee Pettit:
So it's actually the complete opposite. It's not in a bad way though. It's because we're growing so quickly that we're trying to stay ahead of the curve for next year. So right now we do have the store and I want to draw attention to the store, but this isn't the be-all end-all. Our goals that we're currently working on and have been working on since January is to get into malls across Canada next Christmas.
Elle Yip:
I think it's a really, really amazing opportunity for these vendors to both have more presence because some of the vendors that we carry, they have a small following. Most of them are small businesses or doing this part-time. So for them to be in store, they have a physical presence, they have more attention brought onto their work, which is also really beautiful that we are able to empower small Indigenous businesses from across Canada.
Chelsee Pettit:
These are people that I've met in Toronto for the last couple of years. Sometimes it's a customer who comes into the store and they're like, oh, I do beadwork as well, and then the next week they're dropping off beadwork and we're selling it out for them.
Al Grego:
In terms of the marketplace and competition, is there any?
Chelsee Pettit:
It's not really competition to me. I think the more revenue streams that Indigenous artists and businesses can make money from, the better. But I do see my brand sticking out a little further. My goal is basically to become the conglomerate to create a wealth system, but then it benefits an actual community as opposed to a corporate entity or a CEO who owns it.
So my goal is basically to reclaim the Indigenous economy through fashion and commerce because Indigenous people are the original trades people across Canada and North America and further. I really want to create those sorts of systems back in place. We don't have vendors that are just in Canada, they're in the States as well.
Al Grego:
Up next, after a number of successful pop-ups and the successful grand opening of her storefront, Chelsee has succeeded in getting Aaniin off the ground and growing. But her biggest struggle may be living up to her own lofty ambition. How does she fare? Let's find out.
You are listening to Yes, We Are Open. Chelsee Pettit has taken her Indigenous streetwear clothing brand Aaniin and turned it into a thriving retail store in a trendy downtown Toronto market. Now, for many, this would already be a success story, but Chelsee has her sights set on a bigger picture. She wants to create more opportunity for other Indigenous creators to prosper. She wants to put their work and products in malls across the country. Is this mission advisable or even attainable? Let's find out. What's been your biggest struggle so far?
Chelsee Pettit:
The typical process of an entrepreneur is basically to build up through either their own savings or bootstrapping their businesses, which I have done. But with clothing, because the margins are so different compared to a lot of other inventory that people purchase, the margins don't get small until you're buying thousands and thousands of pieces of one product. So buying 50 pieces out of my whole collection in small, medium, large, extra large, having a total of 50 pieces, it's not enough to basically get my business going. So I've really just had to take net losses. We haven't had a loss, but it's like we're always sitting at a net zero, and that's because we're constantly reinvesting every single cent that we are getting back into more inventory, trying to cut down on our margins so we can keep growing.
But the biggest barrier is that there's only one Indigenous investment fund in all of Canada. So there's only one revenue that I can try to take money from, but they're like venture capital. So it's giving away so much money so early, which I'm going to have to do and I'm totally fine with it because I just want to see this happen as fast as possible.
Al Grego:
Was there ever a point in this journey that you've been on for the last couple of years where it looked like it wasn't going to happen?
Chelsee Pettit:
All the time. Still to this day. I am so close to getting everything in place to start doing pop-ups next Christmas. But I mean, any wrong turn could be the end of it because I do have so much riding on each and every section of the business. Even with banks, I haven't been able to get a line of credit because I don't have my taxes done because I haven't been able to even take time to take care of basic things. I haven't been to a doctor or a dentist or so many other things in the last year, let alone be able to properly keep up my bookkeeping. There was definitely days that I had a migraine or I felt sick, but I would still go to the store and just have a migraine there, and it would honestly pay off. Some of the worst days that I was having, somebody would come into the store and spend $1,500 in one transaction.
If you just keep showing up and you just keep making yourself open and available, then there will be people who come and surprise you. Maybe it's just people see you working so hard, or maybe it's people who just genuinely love the designs. There's so many possibilities that it could be, but you can't do that if you're not there. If I just closed the store that day, I wouldn't have made that $1,500 sale and then that wouldn't have pushed me to keep doing that every single day. So I actually, I was thinking about this yesterday. I was walking through the mall trying to envision what we would look like in malls, and I basically was just kind of thinking about consistency. I think something popped up on my phone, one of those Instagram videos that are like, if you want to be everything you want to be, you need to be consistent type of thing. And I was like, honestly, yeah, that's true.
Al Grego:
This Stackt Market is an experience. This isn't... I wouldn't call this a mall.
Chelsee Pettit:
No.
Al Grego:
So this is a very unique experience and it kind of demands unique vendors that you are, right?
Chelsee Pettit:
Yes.
Al Grego:
But when I think of Yorkdale or Upper Canada or West Edmonton, is that still something you should be looking forward to?
Chelsee Pettit:
I definitely think so. I think there's a huge hole in the whole retail industry, and I saw it working in the companies that I worked for for 10 years. I was consistently one of the bestsellers since I was 18. And I think it's just because I have such a good storytelling background to me, and it just comes like second nature, and there's so many stories to tell inside of the store. So if you're providing value to customers, it creates that sort of fun experience. Sometimes people stay in the store for an hour and it's a tiny store. There's not that much to look at, but people enjoy hearing about all of the different stories, and I definitely think since COVID, it is making a huge comeback because people don't want to order online. They don't want to have that disconnection. People are scared about technology. I don't feel like it's actually going to make a big impact until maybe 10 or 15 years from now.
Al Grego:
So you think malls are here to stay for a little while longer?
Chelsee Pettit:
I think malls are here to stay, but I think the stores inside of them are going to start to change, and I think we could be a driving force in that change when people see how well we're doing and not even just from what we're visually doing. It's the KPIs behind everything that we're doing in here. We have a great average dollar per transaction, so when people come in here, they are dropping good money and it's really because they do feel a connection to the people that they're buying the products from.
Al Grego:
You kind of touched on this a bit in part one. Maybe talk to our listeners who aren't Indigenous but might be nervous to try to wear some of your clothes or some of the jewelry. My wife just bought a pair of Indigenous earrings because she loved the way they looked. But she only bought it because she was assured that it was okay for her to wear it.
Chelsee Pettit:
Totally. As long as it's being assured by an Indigenous person that it's okay, go for it. Because you don't want to support non-Indigenous people selling Indigenous designs. There's a catch 22, because people just assume that it's not okay, but as long as it's coming from an Indigenous person, then it's totally appropriate to celebrate their culture with them.
So I'm trying to create, I call it a hybrid retail experience. And because we carry artists, and these are artists that are walking down the street right next to you, you could be walking past one of them in downtown Toronto. So it's people that they want to keep seeing in the city. It's people that they are friends with, or it's people who are visiting outside of the city, coming to the city for maybe the first time, or they like visiting, but they've never seen themselves in society when they do come to visit, there's so much potential not only for the average consumer, but also just for Indigenous people to see ourselves.
When other e-commerce brands are charging 2.6 or 2.8% to take transaction fees from small businesses, it really makes a huge impact. So I immediately switched over to Moneris for just in-store processes because it saves me basically 1 to 1.5% transaction fees, which is crucial when you're selling $15,000 in a month, especially when you're just getting started. We did $65,000 in the month when we first opened in June. So that is a huge amount of savings that we just would've thrown away if we didn't switch over to Moneris. And it also has a lot more of a professional feel just having the physical debit terminal here instead of a card reader. So yeah, it's definitely helped the growth quite drastically.
Al Grego:
Coming up after the break, we find out what the future holds for Aaniin Retail Inc.
Speaker 8:
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Al Grego:
Welcome back to Yes, We Are Open. Aaniin Retail Inc is continuing to grow, and Chelsee Pettit is steadfast in her mission to create a 100% Indigenous-backed business providing opportunity for other Indigenous suppliers and artisans. So what does the future hold for Aaniin? Let's find out. You've overcome a lot to get to this point. Your brand opening went well. The pandemic seems to be over.
Chelsee Pettit:
Yeah, fingers crossed.
Al Grego:
Fingers crossed. What does the future look like for you?
Chelsee Pettit:
We are currently working very quickly right now. We are pushing for a big Black Friday season, so just thinking upcoming. So after Truth and Reconciliation Day, I am going to be launching the business with 100 new vendors that we are hoping to promote for Black Friday to the holiday season. So this year for Christmas, I'm hoping a lot of people consider shopping Indigenous for a lot of gifts. We are going to have some gift guides and packages and things like that all set up for our customers to make it a little bit easier. I'm really excited. Last year we did $50,000 from Black Friday leading up until Christmas, and I shut down the site a week before Christmas, so that was only a three week time period.
So this year I'm hoping for 150K. I really like to talk with numbers because I feel like especially for maybe entrepreneurs listening to this, it's so hard to grasp what the success of other people looks like. Some people, they just talk and they're just like, yeah, we did so well in Q2, and then we doubled it. But then it's like, what did you double? Did you double $500 and then you made 1,000 or did you double a million and then you made 2 million? So I just like to talk very openly and transparently about that too.
Al Grego:
Appreciate that. That's amazing. But it gives a sense of context.
Chelsee Pettit:
Yeah, totally.
Al Grego:
What's your next growth?
Chelsee Pettit:
So my next growth would hopefully become headquarters, maybe even sooner than the pop-ups, but I really want to create internships for Indigenous youth or just any sort of youth that are just looking to get hands-on skills outside of the regular school system. For me, I'm a three-time college dropout, and I learn the best by doing hands-on. I learned everything that I know from running my own stores as a retail store manager, and although I was only getting paid like 40 to $60,000 a year, those are the things that really allowed me to just jump right into what I'm currently doing.
Al Grego:
What would you like to see your future with Aaniin be?
Elle Yip:
So I actually told Chelsee that I really want to stay with Aaniin long-term because I really appreciate and love this brand so much. Long-term, I would love to see Aaniin grow towards its goals, be an Indigenous department store that brings just visibility and presence to Indigenous people. Right now, my main goal is to definitely push Aaniin because not only do I really love working here, but it's just an amazing brand with a beautiful and powerful impact and vision. Maybe in the future if I do decide to branch off and do off my own thing, then that would be really exciting for me as well.
Chelsee Pettit:
I feel like I don't even see it. I feel like I'm so far in the future that... It's funny because at the grand opening, so many people were coming up and they're like, how do you feel? And I'm like, I don't feel anything. It's like I'm so consumed by it every day that I don't get to experience it like everyone else, but I don't care. I think I got to experience it when I came up with the idea.
Elle Yip:
There's only so many amazing things that I can say about this brand and what Aaniin is doing and their vision, and it's just a really, really great feeling to be working here. And I don't think that if I had the opportunity back when I was choosing my internships, if I had the opportunity to go with anyone else, I would've chose Aaniin like 100%, every single time.
Chelsee Pettit:
I'm still not paying myself, but it's getting closer and closer to setting up all of the connections that I need to have a very successful year next year. So that's all I think about is okay, after we get over that hurdle, and maybe after I take my first vacation in three years, maybe then I'll be able to sit with it and just see how I feel. But yeah, it's just one of those things.
Al Grego:
Well, I'm thoroughly impressed with [inaudible 00:28:28] here already.
Chelsee Pettit:
Thank you.
Al Grego:
So I can't imagine what the next couple of... You did this in two years, I can't imagine what the next two years are going to be. Thanks so much.
Chelsee Pettit:
Thank you so much for having me.
Al Grego:
Chelsee and Elle is Aaniin open?
Chelsee Pettit:
Yes, we are open.
Elle Yip:
Yes, we are open.
Al Grego:
That's the story of Aaniin Retail Inc. I have a confession to make. I'm a horrible salesperson. I only lasted three days at my one and only sales job, and the first two days were training days. I didn't get fired, mind you, I quit. It just wasn't in me. So when I see someone who's good at sales, I'm impressed. So long as they're not trying to sell something to me. I hate pushy salespeople. So now I'm going against my better judgment to let you know what sales tactic works best on me. And it shouldn't be any surprise given the nature of this podcast. It's storytelling. If you can make me care about a product by building an emotional attachment to that product, then I'm as good as sold. That's one of the major goals of any marketing these days, telling good stories. But it's not a new concept. It's been around for ages.
In fact, there's a Native American proverb that goes, those who tell stories rule the world. Chelsee knows this innately, and it has served her well in her past retail experiences. Now she has some big ideas for Aaniin and she believes she can deliver on them. And from the limited time I've spent with her, I'm sold. I have no doubt she can do it because I sincerely believe she has no doubt she can do it. So yes, I do believe that one day you'll see Aaniin stores in malls across this country. And it is my sincere hope that sometimes soon Chelsee can take that long overdue vacation and look back at what she's built so far and be proud.
Yes, We Are Open is a Moneris podcast production. I'd like to thank Elle and Chelsee for taking their time to share their story. You can learn more about Aaniin Retail Inc at aaniin.shop. Follow them on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok at aaniin.hello. And on Pinterest, they're at aaniin.hello. And by the way, Aaniin is spelt aaniin. Please support this podcast by writing us a review on Apple Podcasts, or rate us on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. If you're a Canadian small business owner or know of one with an interesting story perseverance to tell, I'd love to help tell it. You can contact me at podcast@moneris.com. Tune in next week for another story of small business struggle and survival on the Yes, We Are Open podcast. I'm Al Grego. Thank you for listening.