Alternative Outfitters was born out of their desire to make available an array of cruelty- free products to all those who wanted stylish yet environmentally-friendly articles of personal care. Jackie's business acumen combined with Henny’s superb sense of style has seen the online store capturing orders from around the globe. Two years down the line, many commendations and awards later, the duo have now opened a brick and mortar showroom in addition to their virtual store.

What are your reasons for adopting a vegan lifestyle?

Even when I was small I loved animals and essentially adopted my neighbor's goat, sheep, and lambs much to the dismay of my mother. When I was nine we went for a holiday to Corfu. There was a butcher's shop opposite my hotel room. Three lambs were taken from a van and weighed. The next morning they hung as carcasses.

After that I turned vegetarian. I wanted to choose a career that involved animals, but that did not happen. I majored in nutrition and went on to work in the food industry, but my heart was not in my work. I was always looking for avenues to do something I believed in.

How did the idea to start an Internet-based outlet evolve?

I had one of those "how did I get here?" moments in terms of my career. Ultimately, I wanted to do something I truly loved, while making a difference in the world. I had always done what was considered practical, but have never really loved what I was doing.

I hadn't worn leather since I was 16 and always had a tough time shopping. There were not a lot of fashion forward vegan options out there. I thought, "Wouldn’t it be great to be able to find animal-friendly fashions that were also stylish all in one store?" I figured there had to be other people out there like me who were fed up with searching for cool non-leather shoes and accessories. I also figured if we could show you could still be trendy and not wear leather, then maybe we could convince others to start shopping cruelty-free who maybe didn't in the past.

How did you team up together?

Henny and I originally met working in the food industry. We were both Food Technologists with college degrees in Food Science. We worked for years together at Dole Food Company then both left to pursue other careers. Henny became a computer programmer and I went into sales. We had always remained friends after leaving Dole. With Henny's programming background and my experience in sales, we were a perfect match.

The name Alternative Outfitters captures the essence of your store so well. How did you come up with the name?

We came up with the name after lots of brainstorming. We figured that we were offering cute, trendy "alternatives" to leather products and we did not want to limit ourselves in terms of what items we could sell and thought "outfitters" pretty well covered it.

How difficult was it at first to gather merchandise for your store?

It took a lot of time searching and a lot of explaining. The mainstream world of fashion and accessories didn't quite get the whole vegan thing at the time. We had to educate a lot of our suppliers. What's great is now some mainstream brands realize there is a whole consumer base that is looking for animal-friendly options and they are trying to really accommodate the vegan consumer.

Do you source stock from other countries or from within the United States?

Mainly the companies we work with our based in the US and Canada, but they manufacture all over the world.

Do you get a lot of returns or exchanges?

We do get returns and exchanges. That is the nature of an online business; especially since we sell shoes. We get quite a few customers that need to exchange for a different size.

Any dissatisfied customers or people bent on creating problems?

We are really lucky. It is extremely rare that we have any issues with our customers. We really strive to have awesome customer service and we really listen to our customers.

Do you have international customers? Have you encountered any shipping or payment problems?

There are people all over the world looking for vegan products. It's amazing. We have shipped everywhere from Brazil to Australia to Israel. We don't usually have any shipping or payment problems. We have had a couple of packages get lost, but they have always found there way back to us. The only payment problem we have ever had was back when we accepted personal checks, but we don't do that anymore.

It is quite difficult to choose footwear even otherwise. How would you rate the demand for footwear compared to your other products?

We sell more footwear than any other product. I think it's because it's one of the hardest vegan items to find in the fashion world.

How do you make sure your products are cruelty free and sweat shop free?

We have strict guidelines and requirements in terms of what materials we will purchase with all of our suppliers. We also require all of our suppliers manufacturing outside the US and Canada to sign a letter stating they pay fair wages in their factories and do not manufacture their products in sweat shops. Unfortunately, we cannot visit their facilities so we have to trust they are being truthful in their statements.

Recently you have added a brick and mortar store. How is the response?

We opened the showroom because we had a lot of local customers who wanted to come in and try on the shoes and see our products in person. It's not really a regular retail store in terms of retail hours (we don't have the staff for that yet), but we will also take appointments if our customers can't make it in during our regular hours which right now are Mon-Fri from 11:00 a.m.-4:30 p.m. We have only been open for one official day so far, so it's hard to give feedback on the response.

What would your advice be to those who wish to open online stores?

It's a great way to start out slowly. It does not require the same amount of capital as a brick and mortar store and you get to sell to people all over the country and all over the world. Just make sure you love what you do and what you sell. It's a lot of work and takes a lot of time, but in the end it's so worth it.