Breaking Through Brick and Mortar: Entrepreneurs Leveraging Ecommerce

Thus, the Klupars set out to build what would eventually become Voyij.com. Their community-focused ecommerce platform aims to support local businesses and help travelers connect with and purchase the best tours and gifts Alaska has to offer, all sourced and fulfilled by locals. Klupar says, “Through trial and error, we landed on the solution of an ecommerce marketplace—not just for our family businesses but for all Alaskan businesses—a ‘one-stop-shop’ website where travelers can browse and discover over 20,000 Alaskan items, including fresh seafood; Native art, apparel, and jewelry; and experiences, from dog mushing, northern lights, salmon fishing, whale watching, and much more.”

For Trickster Company, ecommerce provides a direct gateway for promoting its Indigenous-themed products. With a warehouse in Anchorage and design studios in Juneau, the company uses ecommerce to sell products on its website, interact with the community through social media, and develop relationships with other businesses.

A Graying Workforce

Founders Rico and Crystal Worl began building the brand in 2011 as a brick-and-mortar venture. Years later, the siblings shifted their efforts strictly online due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But the original vision for the company remains.

“Our niche market was identified by the obvious demand for Native-designed items and contrasted by the quantity of cheesy knock off items in gift shops. We decided to provide for that marketplace, but with authenticity,” Rico Worl explains. “We created products that meet the interest in Alaska and Alaska Native art and culture. Many people who have visited, lived in, or grew up in Alaska have connections they hold precious and want to remember or celebrate. We are there to support those celebrations authentically.”

Trickster Company initially started with hand painting skateboards but quickly saw the demand for Indigenous-designed items. To make the products more accessible, they began having the skateboards manufactured. “Over time, we have continuously added more products,” Worl says. “From skateboards, we moved into playing cards, basketballs, apparel, and much more.”

Their successful ecommerce business now operates with the help of many family members, including their parents—Dawn Yolkol Dinwoodie and Rod Worl—who oversee the Anchorage facility. The company now ships its distinctive products to retail shoppers and wholesale buyers worldwide.

Ecommerce is also vital to Wild Alaskan Company, a direct-to-consumer seafood membership service that ships sustainable, wild-caught Alaska seafood to the doorsteps of consumers in all fifty states. The company, founded by Arron Kallenberg in 2017, shipped its first box of fish in February 2018. In 2023, it began to vertically integrate with the acquisition of Home Port Seafoods, a custom seafood processor in Bellingham, Washington.

Kallenberg, the son and grandson of commercial fishermen, often refers to his business as a “three-generation overnight success.”

Despite being born into a commercial fishing family, Kallenberg says he was a “nerdy kid” who loved to tinker with computers. “I would bring my laptop out to sea and even rigged up a very slow internet connection on our boat in Bristol Bay in the late ‘90s,” he recalls. “Growing up, my dad and I would often talk about how the internet would eventually revolutionize the ability of fishermen to build and access direct markets. So in 2017, after spending nearly two decades working in the tech industry, I took a leap of faith, combining my two passions—seafood and tech—to launch the Wild Alaskan Company.”

Emma Privat also grew up commercial fishing. In 2012, she and her sister, Claire Neaton—both raised on a homestead in the Aleutian Islands—founded Homer-based Salmon Sisters. An online platform was integral to the company’s inception. “We started our business using ecommerce because we didn’t yet have a physical storefront established and used social media to gain visibility,” Privat says.

Today the sisters fish together in the Aleutian Islands, Copper River Delta, Prince William Sound, and Bristol Bay, along with their families. In addition to selling wild Alaska seafood, Salmon Sisters offers gear and apparel for fishing and the outdoors as well as branded specialty goods, artwork, and gifts from Alaska. “As women in the industry, we wanted to use our creativity and business knowledge to offer clothing and art to our female peers who were also working on the water,” Privat says. “There wasn’t much out there tailored for women in the commercial fishing industry or that represented or celebrated the work we were doing.”

Before they had a warehouse, inventory systems, and a year-round team in place to help with fulfillment, the sisters quickly learned that they would need space and assistance with shipping—especially with their seasonal work as fishermen on the water. “We had to invest in space for our inventory and hire reliable workers who could step in when we were out at sea and get orders out reliably,” Privat says. “We tried many different shipping methods and different web platforms (Etsy, Big Cartel, Shopify, et cetera) until we were happy with our website experience.”

Challenges and Successes

Although Salmon Sisters has been successfully marketing and shipping wild Alaska seafood (frozen) to customers around the country through its ecommerce site, the company has learned its share of lessons over the years. For one, seafood is a perishable, high-value product that requires substantial customer education and logistical expertise. “It’s a difficult product to sell online, but we’ve enjoyed watching the program grow,” says Privat, the company’s creative director.

Salmon Sisters is proud to supply customers nationwide with frozen wild Alaska seafood. The business, which operates brick-and-mortar shops in Homer, has been able to amplify its reach beyond the state and bring more awareness to Alaska seafood by having a web presence where it can offer everything from seafood to cookbooks to art. “Our business supports our families year-round and a small team of young Alaskans who work with us through the seasons in Homer,” Privat says.

For Voyij, a major initial challenge was figuring out how to build a “retail mall for travel,” something Klupar says had never been done before. Ultimately, the Klupars customized a solution based on what worked and what didn’t work for customers. “With several years under our belt now, we know the insights that have influenced how Voyij works today are providing invaluable exposure and connections to customers and to our business community, which would never have been possible through any other means,” Klupar says.

Klupar says Voyij achieves success each time a business makes a sale, especially the first sale, through its platform. “When that first order comes through with the customer details and items purchased, it’s a priceless feeling,” she says.

According to Klupar, Voyij.com currently represents more than 300 local businesses from more than fifty communities across Alaska and growing. Thirty percent of its business community is mom-and-pop small businesses or artists who have never used ecommerce before, and 20 percent are Alaska Native artists—many who live in remote communities away from the main tourist hubs (often with limited cellphone service, no bank accounts, and “iffy” US postal service). There is no cost to join the Voyij.com platform, and it offers free training and help with product onboarding to ensure every business is successful.

“We have surpassed $1 million in sales through Voyij.com, with all proceeds going directly into the pockets of local businesses,” Klupar says. “These online orders expand the economic pie for everyone, support Alaska’s economy, and help keep our communities vibrant and strong.”

At Trickster Company, manufacturing has been a significant issue to overcome. That’s why ecommerce was critical for the small startup. “Though we do some small-scale manufacturing in our warehouse in Anchorage, some things just cannot be produced locally,” Worl says. “Very few US manufacturers like to work with small businesses, so ecommerce allowed us to build connections with manufacturers in China and Canada. This allowed us to find companies with reasonable MOQ’s [minimum order quantities] and high-quality products.”

Social media is helping Trickster Company stay close to its community and customers, but there is always a disconnect when products are shipped off instead of handed to customers. Consequently, each time Worl sees people engaging with or wearing the company’s products, it’s a visible sign of success. “I always tell people that my biggest feelings of success is in moments when I may be driving around while visiting another city and I happen to see a kid walking down the street bouncing a Trickster Co. basketball or when I see inspirational leaders like [former US Secretary of the Interior] Deb Haaland wearing earrings we’ve made,” he says.

One of the biggest difficulties Wild Alaskan Company faced in the early days, according to Kallenberg, was establishing a fulfillment network capable of cost-effectively servicing the entire country. “Seafood weighs a lot and needs to be shipped with dry ice, which further increases the weight of the shipment,” he says. “The further you are from the customer, the lower your margins.” This problem was significant for a company he describes as a data-driven marketing and tech-enabled logistics business that just happens to sell frozen seafood.

In the very beginning, Wild Alaskan Company shipped from a single warehouse in Wisconsin. It wasn’t until it expanded to multiple warehouses across the country and began using multiple regional carriers that it realized the margins required to truly scale the business. Over time, the company created a suite of proprietary logistics software that helps it cost-effectively manage this fulfillment network. “We’ve applied a similar amount of rigor to our proprietary ecommerce platform and data-driven marketing initiatives, which has allowed us to weather multiple storms in the ever-evolving online advertising landscape,” Kallenberg says.

As a significant milestone, Wild Alaskan Company reached 100,000 active subscribers with its seafood membership service several years ago. Kallenberg credits this success primarily to the effectiveness of the company’s social media advertising—more generally, to its data-driven marketing strategies—and to efficiencies implemented in its supply chain. “Of course, the quality of our product and the incredibly talented team at Wild Alaskan Company also played vital roles,” he says.

Evolving with Ecommerce

With the rise of AI-driven tools, the future of ecommerce is poised for significant transformation, Machuca says. To stay ahead, businesses should consider proactive strategies. These strategies include embracing AI to offer personalized shopping experiences, automate customer service with chatbots, and improve inventory management; employing social commerce by enabling purchases on social media platforms; developing omnichannel strategies to create an integrated shopping experience across online stores, mobile apps, and physical locations; adopting sustainable practices like eco-friendly packaging and transparent supply chains; and optimizing their ecommerce platform for mobile and voice search.

“By adopting these strategies and utilizing resources like the Alaska SBDC’s AI Resource Program, businesses can navigate the evolving ecommerce landscape and stay competitive,” Machuca says.

Trickster Company continuously adapts its digital marketing strategies on TikTok and Instagram to stay authentic and engaged with followers. It partners with various communities and influencers to share art and stories with new consumer groups and find overlapping interest. “Industry evolves and changes, but engaging the community—from in person to online, being authentic, making real connections, and appreciating their stories—will never fall out of fashion,” Worl says.

Privat considers ecommerce a necessary component of the modern small business. While Salmon Sisters’ brick-and-mortar location offers a tactile, authentic experience, complementing it with an ecommerce platform brings the accessibility needed to reach a wider customer base. “This two-pronged model has served us well to grow and connect with our audience,” she says. “We are eager to keep both sides of the business alive and well because both are such important parts of a brand experience.”

Voyij customers are looking for products or services that meet their shopping preferences based on price, convenience, delivery method, and other factors. Therefore, Klupar says, “The more we can be where our customers already are, the more likely we can earn the trust needed to build a lasting connection (and be a place they trust to spend their hard-earned dollars).” She believes ecommerce solutions that balance hyper-personalization but still offer choice will stand out as winners as the world becomes more interconnected and fast-paced.

From Kallenberg’s perspective, ecommerce presence has never been easier to establish—which is both good and bad. On one hand, businesses no longer need to build everything from scratch; turnkey services like Shopify and drop-shipping platforms simplify operating an online store. On the other hand, lower barriers to entry have increased competition. “Therefore, focusing on business fundamentals is more important than ever,” he says. “Ensuring that you are adequately capitalized, effectively managing your costs, cash flow, and cash conversion cycle, and remaining diligently focused on customer retention (e.g., driving repeat purchases) are critical for survival and growth. Furthermore, investing in building a strong, unique brand, authentic storytelling, and exceptional customer service can help you stand out in an increasingly crowded and competitive marketplace.”