2015 Business Class Honoree: Everything Kitchens LLC

When Emily Church started an online business, she turned to what she knew: the kitchen.

As the eldest of nine children, Church spent a lot of time preparing meals. In 2002, armed with $500 and some Web design experience from helping her parents with a small business, Church launched Everything Kitchens LLC, an online store for kitchenware and appliances. She was barely out of her teens.

“I think it’s easiest to go into an area you’re familiar with,” she says.

In the beginning, when funds were low and it was difficult to carry stock, Everything Kitchens drop shipped every item sold. Today, the company drop ships only 10 percent, and most of the 10,000 items it sells are stored in a local 25,000-square-foot warehouse. Although about 96 percent of Everything Kitchens’ sales are online, the company opened a retail store in 2011 in the Brentwood Center on Glenstone Avenue.

Everything Kitchens hit No. 5 on Springfield Business Journal’s 2014 Dynamic Dozen list and in 2012 took top honors in its size category of SBJ’s Economic Impact Awards. The company also was a finalist for the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce’s Small Business Award in 2013 and 2014. Also last year, Everything Kitchens made the Inc. 5000 at No. 4,894 and ranked No. 564 on Internet Retailer Second’s 500 list, which recognizes fast-growing mid-tier Web merchants. The company had nearly $17 million in revenue last year.

In the highly competitive online arena, Everything Kitchens soon will debut a free three-day shipping guarantee aimed at consumers who increasingly value speed, Church says.

“We’ve worked out some good deals with UPS. We have very aggressive rates,” she says.

Another new option in the works is an add-on warranty to extend what the manufacturer offers, and Everything Kitchens recently rolled out a new mobile layout.

“E-commerce is changing rapidly,” Church says. “We are investing in technological improvements to make processes run as smoothly as possible and to make our customer experience so great that our customers want to return time and time again. Customer expectations are on the rise when they buy online, and so we are doing our absolute best to be innovative in this area to give them above and beyond what they are asking for.”

In the future, Everything Kitchens might offer international shipping.

“We’ve wanted to do that for a couple years,” Church says. “We’re just getting more aggressive about it.”

She is investigating purchasing a building for the company’s headquarters to allow for growth — perhaps next year — and opening a second retail space.

For Church, Everything Kitchens allows her to give back through contributions to World Vision and Healing Haiti, both of which assist people in poverty.

“Ever since I started Everything Kitchens, I’ve always wanted to use our success to help others succeed,” Church says. “I started my company when I was very poor, and it drastically changed my financial situation so I want to help others pull themselves from poverty and do the same.”[[In-content Ad]]