If you have come into our store or been to one of our workshops, you will know we just love talking all things gardening, composting and growing. We love helping people get started on their first vegetable garden and we love it even more when they come back and excitedly show us the pictures of the veggies they have grown.

Just like a garden flourishes with care, small businesses grow strong when nurtured by customer feedback. Listening to our customers is a little like enriching the soil — providing essential nutrients that help a business adapt, improve, and thrive in a competitive online landscape.

Click here to go to our feedback form.

Sowing the Seeds for Success

As we enter our 8th year of trade, it is a vastly different landscape to when the store first opened. In 2017, Urban Revolution's store had just a few products that helped to support Permaculture Designs that Jo was doing for local customers, in 2018 the store grew to a staff of two people. 

The Early Days of Urban Revolution as a Market Stall in 2015

Slowly as we realised the value of growing not just healthy gardens, but people and homes too, our product range increased to cover homewares, personal care and cleaning. This was at a time when sustainability was still not really in the mainstream and was something that only the "hippies" were conscious of. Remember, this is before the single use plastic bans came into place, and we didn't really know the full impact on our health of using products that contained not only plastics, but other harmful ingredients in our every day products, from our shampoo to our laundry and dishwashing products.

Through our own research and seeing the gaps in our own homes for "healthier" products, as well as recommendations from our customers, the product range has grown to what it is today at the start of 2025 - an evolving mix of nearly 2000 product lines from many suppliers Australia Wide, including over 50 local and WA suppliers. We now have eight team members working in Urban Revolution across various roles in retail, marketing, social media, communications and online.

Jo with Staff in the Early Days of Urban Revolution as a Retail Store

Weathering the Storm

Just like a garden facing droughts and storms, small businesses have endured harsh conditions in recent years. The COVID-19 pandemic uprooted many operations, forcing closures, supply chain disruptions, and shifts to online sales. During this time, it became really important to nurture our connections with our local suppliers as we were all struggling together. By connecting with each other to share struggles, ideas and even help cross promote each other's businesses, we strengthened our relationships and the local economy as a result.

Jo with Rod from the Vic Park Men's Shed who make our Popular Seed Boxes.

Now, the rising cost of living adds another challenge, as both businesses and customers struggle with higher prices and reduced spending power. These times make customer feedback more important than ever—helping businesses like ours adapt, refine their offerings, and find creative ways to stay competitive. 

Feedback is the difference between Life and Death 

In a garden, our plants give us feedback to let us know just how healthy they are. Often a bumper crop means we have got the conditions of the plant just right, fed it the right amount of food and given it ample water to thrive. Similarly, a plant that fails to thrive is also giving us feedback. Is it getting too much sun or not enough? Is it deficient in a particular nutrient or under pest attack? 

In the store, we rely on customer feedback to shape our product range and improve our service. When customers share their experiences with us, whether praising what works or suggesting improvements, it helps us keep things fresh and meet our customer's needs. Engaging with customers through reviews, surveys, and direct conversations ensures our little business can adapt to a changing climate in our environmental and economic landscapes.  

Weeding Out Problems

Not all feedback is easy to hear, but even criticism plays a vital role. Negative reviews highlight the areas for improvement. We will always strive to promptly address our customers concerns. That is not to say that sometimes, things don't fall through the cracks. 

Being a small business with a casual workforce and limited budget means that sometimes we miss things - never intentionally. We always want you to feel that your opinions are valued and foster a culture of trust and loyalty.

If you feel we have missed your concern, please get back in touch with us with a reminder - it is never intentional and just the result of busy human beings trying to do their best in the limited time we have. Also in the age of social media reviews, where one negative review can also ruin what is usually a "mum and dad" run business, just trying to provide for their own families, an old fashioned phone call, face to face conversation or email is always preferred to a public review initially to give us a chance to rectify the situation. 

Harvesting the Rewards

Just as a well-tended garden produces a bountiful harvest, we hope that our customer-focused business continues to enjoy strong local support. Some would say we do not have the best business model when we supply products that you will hopefully only have to buy once - this is better for the planet after all. However, if we have given you great service, perhaps think of us again when you need to replace something else. If we don't have the particular product, ask us if we can get it in or maybe even have it made! We will always try our best to make it happen! Chances are, if it will be useful to you, it will be useful to a lot of other people too.

One of our highlights of 2023, was engaging with the many people keen to start regenerating their patch of earth by attending our Composting Workshops, whether it was with the Town of Vic Park, City of Mandurah or City of Armadale.

Jo and Bec Presenting a Composting Workshop for Town of Vic Park Residents

We are expanding our range of workshop offerings.

We utilised Bec's permaculture garden for the popular school holiday workshops through out 2024, and the Native Wreath Making workshop we held in December. We are big believers in always learning and growing and developing new skills - particularly in the areas of self sufficiency and helping to improve the health of not only ourselves but our planet as well. 

In 2025, we hope to increase our Sustainable Sips workshop series further with some new offerings. Learning how to do fermenting and pickling for example is our most requested workshop so this year we are going to make it happen! So whether you would like to get started on your composting journey, or learn to grow food from seed organically, or reduce your reliance on plastic, we have the workshop for this and much more. Perhaps you would like us to come to your school or work place? Let us know what you would like to learn - we have a big network of people with many diverse skills so if it is out of our skill set, we will find the right person for us all to learn from - maybe that is you! 

Growing Together - What You Can Do to Help

In the era of big tech, algorithms, dominant big chains, and climate change affecting our world in both macro and micro ways, it has never been more important for consumers to seek out their local small businesses. Remember, these were the family businesses working overtime to help keep your families fed and more during the supply chain issues in recent years. By supporting and engaging with local businesses like ours and other small independent goods and services providers, our local communities can continue to weather whatever new challenges arise and continue to grow strong together. 

Jo and Urban Revolution Staff outside our Store in 2024

Just as a thriving garden supports pollinators and surrounding plants, successful small businesses uplift the community—creating jobs, inspiring entrepreneurship, and keeping money circulating locally. By embracing your customer feedback, Urban Revolution can grow stronger, helping to ensure our place in what can be a flourishing local economy.

Here is where you come in to help us move forward into this next phase of our business.

🪴 Please leave positive online reviews on both google or our website if you loved a product or service we provided. 

🪴 Contact us directly in the rare chance a product or our service has not met your expectations and we will do our best to fix it.

🪴 Tell us if you would like us to research a particular product to add to our list or a workshop you would like to attend.

🪴 Most importantly, (because we do not have the money or sway to go up against the Zuckerbergs of this world) please tell everyone in your community about us and they should come and check us out next time they need a new coffee cup or some seeds to start their veggie garden. We will welcome them with a big smile and open arms.

Please send us your feedback on our 'Your Voice Matters' feedback page.

So, we will keep listening to you, keep improving, and keep growing—because happy customers are the best fertiliser for our success! 🌱✨