Pay What You Can

Well, because we believe in it.

We did it once before during the hardest days of COVID, and while those days are behind us, we know firsthand that a lot of us are still struggling. 

We feel it as consumers, we feel it as parents, and we feel it more than ever right now as small business owners.

There's a reason that we almost never know that our favorite small businesses are struggling, until they post a farewell note on social media and close the doors:

It's hard to ask for help.

So most small businesses silently struggle, until it's too late.

This is our way of showing you that we're all in this together.

Some of us need extra help this year, and some of us are in a position to help others. It's that simple.

Our Pay What You Can program allows you to bring home the products you love at a price point that feels fair, and also Pay It Forward to support our small business and others in need.

We need your help as a small business to keep this 22-year dream going, so we're giving you all of ours.

A scammer would say no here, right? So you shouldn't take our word for it.

But, we've got a 22-year history of building our little business with heart, no cap.

Read our story, check out the national press we've received, or the thousands of verified product reviews on our site - we think you'll realize pretty quickly that we're as real as they come. 💛

As you can imagine, an offer like this is sure to attract spam & bots. It's also unavoidable that people will channel their inner Price Is Right strategy and try to make an offer of $1 for everything.

Our system has a built-in measure for trying to reduce spam - if your offer is significantly below our cost, the Counter Offer you receive won't necessarily be the lowest offer we would accept.

It's designed so we aren't automatically rewarding every $5 bidder and spam bot with a counter offer of the absolute lowest price that we would accept for a product.

But - we all know that spam filters don't always get it right, and we're doing our best here.

It's our sincere goal to help as many people as possible, so if you feel you made a reasonable offer and received a counter offer you're not happy with, just reply to the email and we'll do whatever we can to help you!

If you have the means, please consider buying from our shop at full price and know that your support means the world to our small business.

We've also created a Pay It Forward donation option in our shop. Every dollar contributed will help support the discounts that we provide to others, and help us to continue our mission of spreading happiness for as long as possible.

Beyond any monetary contribution, our biggest ask is that you help spread the word. If you use social media, tell your friends what we're up to. If you work for a media outlet, or know someone who does, let them know that we could use a little bit of PR love!

Of course. Just send us an email with a list of the products you're looking to buy, and what price point(s) work for you, and we'll either approve your offer, or let you know what we can do to help out.

You saved the hardest question for last, didn't you?

The honest answer: We don't know!

This is an experiment that almost no other company we know of, big or small, is doing.

It started as a way to help our customers during the holidays, and now we're keeping it going one day at a time to see where it leads.

We're having open conversations with our customers and our retail partners, and crunching numbers to understand the impact it's having on our small business.

At this point, only one thing is certain - it feels really good to read your emails and hear that we're making a difference for so many of you. And the kindness and support we're feeling in return is what's keeping this grand experiment going.

Thanks for letting us be creative and try something new. Keep spreading the word and maybe we can build a better way of doing business for everyone. 💛