Co-founders Matt and Lisa Hammonds started Full Leaf Tea Company, a direct-to-consumer ecommerce business, in 2014 with $100 and a credit card with a $2,500 limit.
They took pictures of their products in their kitchen, holding lamps over them to improve lighting. Full Leaf started as an ecommerce business with a 30-day Shopify trial. That’s how long the couple gave themselves to make money.
More than 10 years later, the company has averaged 95% annual growth, Matt said. In 2024, it was about 65% growth, he added.
“Ecommerce was actually the perfect direction for us to go in just because we didn’t really have anything else that we could use to build,” Lisa told Digital Commerce 360.
Since then, they’ve gained experience navigating supply chain issues related to tariffs during President Donald Trump’s first term, overhauling their website, testing out old and new marketing tactics, and more.
How Full Leaf set up its ecommerce business
Full Leaf still uses Shopify today. There weren’t the ecommerce tools then that there are today, Matt said. He recalled considering BigCommerce and Magento but ultimately deciding on Shopify.
The couple also knew they didn’t want to start on Etsy because they had a goal of growing a large business. They didn’t see Etsy as long-term, though “it might have been better at the beginning,” Matt said.
Today, Matt said, Shopify is “making a lot of changes, a lot of upgrades, of course a lot of issues as well, too. But that’s kind of expected. The downside is it’s not fully customizable.”
Full Leaf is starting to get to the point where it might make sense to build a site from scratch, he said. There are limitations when retailers grow in Shopify that can be pain points, he added, “but we’re navigating it.”
“If the limitations get to the point where there’s enough of a value lost there, then it will make sense to go a custom route, which is a big investment,” Matt said. “We’re weighing that and seeing if maybe in the next couple years we want to make that change. And they did just up their pricing as well on things, so that’s another consideration.”
Full Leaf diversifies its revenue sources
As part of its ecommerce site, Full Leaf offers subscriptions. Those subscriptions account for 15% to 20% of its revenue, Matt said. The retailer uses an app called Appstle to facilitate subscriptions. It charges a flat monthly fee — which Matt said he preferred over other companies’ per-transaction charges.
In addition to ecommerce, Full Leaf also sells wholesale — though that’s currently a relatively small part of its business. Wholesale accounts for about 2% of the company’s sales, Matt said, but Full Leaf plans to increase that.
“We really want to diversify income streams, income sources, platforms we use, all that kind of stuff, ’cause in the ecommerce world, crazy things can happen and you can have a whole channel shut down for whatever reason or Google makes a major change and all of a sudden your ads don’t work anymore,” Matt said. “We never want to be too reliant on one thing.”
In October 2024, Full Leaf began running national television advertisements. It also started sending physical mailers, taking what Lisa referred to as “the old-school route” to marketing.
The TV ads, specifically, have been “a huge boost” over the last few months. Full Leaf also felt overly reliant on Google Ads, which generated a “big percentage” of customer acquisition, Matt said. The TV ads also feed into the digital advertising, he said.
Full Leaf works with a company that creates specific QR codes for every ad spot, helping attribute sales based on time of day, channel, and which code got the most scans. Still, those QR code scans are a small percentage of the sales, he said. A lot of consumers just go to their computers or on their phones and Google search the retailer, he added.
Developing a mobile app
Last year, Full Leaf overhauled its website, which Matt said “reset a lot of things with SEO” and digital ads. 2024’s sales were “almost a reverse bell curve” because of it, and the summer involved “a little bit of fighting back” to regain SEO and other digital progress, he said.
This year, Full Leaf plans to overhaul its app. The current app runs through a third-party service called Plobal, which Matt said functions as a wrapper that shows Full Leaf’s ecommerce website.
There’s only so much customization retailers can do through third-party services, he said. Full Leaf is looking into building a new, custom app from scratch.
“With ecommerce, every computer browser version, everything looks different everywhere when it comes to websites,” Matt said. “It’s really hard to control that. But in an app form, we know exactly how it’s going to look, how it’s going to work and all that.”
The current mobile app accounts for about 3% to 5% of Full Leaf sales, he said. And the shoppers who use it convert at about double the rate as those using Full Leaf’s website.
Full Leaf’s website conversion rate sits at about 4.5%, with an average order value at about $45, Matt said.
“There’s more intent, there’s less shopping around when you’re in an app,” he said. “That’s why we want to really focus on building that to give our customers the experience of simple, quick, easy shopping right from their phone.”
Matt expects the app build to be a project for the spring or early summer this year.
What Full Leaf learned from 10 years in ecommerce
Matt said he has learned a lot from 10 years in ecommerce; mainly: it’s a lot more difficult than he thought.
“If we started today, I don’t know that we would have the same success,” Matt said. “It’s so much harder to start today than it was 10 years ago. Obviously ecommerce wasn’t new, but it was newer, not near as much competition.”
Lisa added that the couple has learned to diversify their skill sets. After starting from zero, they’ve learned about marketing, customer acquisition and retention, and more. But by the time they start to feel confident about a specific skill, like marketing, for example, something new rolls out.
“A lot of people think when you put your website up to sell online, everyone can see you, and it’s really the opposite. No one sees you,” Matt said. “You’re now competing against tens of millions of other websites, competing for the same terms. Your competition is huge. Getting that first traction is really hard in ecommerce.”
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