How a Summer Christmas Shopping Spree Inspired This Entrepreneur to Launch a Thriving Bargain Business
A vacationing Lee’s Summit, Missouri, woman walks into a store outside Little Rock, Arkansas, and even though it’s August, she leaves with all her Christmas shopping finished — at a cost so low that it would make Santa’s elves blush.
For many folks, a smug sense of self-satisfaction would have been enough. But that’s not the way Jennifer Bishop rolls.
She’s beaten cancer more than once, developed real estate, and founded an online site selling customized sports socks. So the wheels started turning for Bishop after she loaded up her purchases, and less than a year later, she too had a retail outlet selling all kinds of items at rock-bottom prices.
Bishop, 43, opened Retail Bins in a Blue Springs, Missouri, strip shopping center on June 1, 2024. Her inventory comes from truckloads of overstocked or returned merchandise from retailers like Amazon, Target, Walmart, and Home Depot.
Open Friday through Wednesday, Retail Bins reduces the price on everything in stock each successive day from $12 to $2. It also sells a variety of mystery boxes, ranging in price from an Amazon potpourri for $65 to a kids bin for $5.
In addition to providing bargains, Retail Bins is a green business.
Its merchandise may well have ended up in a landfill, with one study estimating that 9.5 billion pounds of returned goods in the United States end up in landfills, generating 24 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions.
Bishop also gives back to the community through Retail Bins, including helping the Police Athletic League provide back-to-school supplies for approximately 1,500 students. Retail Bins also donates to the Company of Champions, a Blue Springs organization that assists people with disabilities, and Bra Couture KC, which supports underinsured or uninsured cancer patients.
Bishop operates Retail Bins while being a stepmother and adoptive mom to five kids combined and holding down a full-time job as a corporate trainer for a company that manages homeowners associations.
That her off-switch is perpetually on was evident early in her career.
She earned her elementary education degree from Boise State — she is originally from Idaho — while bouncing around different states working real estate deals with friends. One of the properties brought her to Kansas City, and she stayed because she liked the area.
Bishop’s past medical challenges put entrepreneurship in perspective.
“I've met the people that I've met. I've done the things that I've done because you kind of feel that ‘why not’ feeling,” she said. “You know, when you've already made it past cancer so many times, you're like, ‘Hey, why not?’ What's the worst that could happen?”
The first year can be a struggle for small businesses. That was not the case for Retail Bins, which netted $55,000 on revenue of $265,000 in its first 12 months.
Some of the stranger things that have ended up on her shelves?
A superhero popcorn bucket from a Marvel movie, which Bishop heard was worth $1,500, and scuba diving gear.
AltCap provided Bishop a $40,000 small business loan that she used to purchase her initial inventory. The rest of the preparatory work came through the sweat equity of Bishop and her friends — donning overalls and working into the early morning hours to renovate the space.
Banks were unwilling to lend to Bishop because she had never run a storefront shop. She found AltCap through a referral from a friend who is also an AltCap client.
Bishop appreciated the fact that, unlike the banks, AltCap dug into her business plan and realized the potential for success.
Her lender was just as excited about the business as Bishop, who is always ready to dive into a challenge without so much as dipping her toe in the water.
“And actually, AltCap was a little bit of a safety net,” Bishop said. “So if … we're saying, ‘I'm jumping all in, cannonball,’ they were the ones with the buoy: Here's the buoy. It's there if you need it. Grab hold of it.”
