What a year it has been at Keiko Furoshiki. Since we launched our business early summer last year, 2024 was truly our first full calendar year in operation. This allowed us to see a full 12 months of retail activity and learn so many lessons along the way. Some were painful, like international shipping logistics and getting into large scale wholesale a little too late in the calendar year. While others were reassuring, like being able to confirm our most successful revenue streams and have more data on our peak holidays: Christmas and Mother's Day.  

But most of all, this year has been punctuated with a series of wins that kept us going and gave us external validation that Keiko Furoshiki was worth doing. Let me share a few of the big wins of 2024. 

Product Improvements and a New Collection

This year, it was a priority for us to improve upon our core product: our reusable fabric gift wrap furoshiki. That meant improving the fabric quality for durability and color vibrancy, redesigning our packaging to use 50% less paper and be more adapted for retailers. This fall, we launched our second collection of 8 more prints: our Wagara Collection. We also heavily invested in inventory so we could meet the demand of our wholesale partners and online customers. During Q4 2024, our sales grew over 900% compared to Q4 2023.  

 Wholesale Growth

One revenue stream we are heavily investing in is wholesale. However, 2024 has been tough on small gift shops so we are grateful for the growth we've had and hoping to attract more large stores in 2025. This past year, we've added a dozen new retailers, including a few museum gift shops like the Nelson-Atkins in Kansas City, where Keiko used to work! 

Part of our wholesale strategy was attending our first trade show, NY Now. This was a large investment for a business our size and to save money, we slept on the floor of a friend's living room (thank you Michele!). It was worth every ache and pain since we made so many valuable connections, good sales, and came back with real market validation that our little brand was onto something. We were also officially added to Faire, a wholesale marketplace. This, along with Bulletin, has helped us get noticed by shops across the country. 

Collaborations and Custom Furoshiki

When sales were a little slow on the website, we kept busy with custom furoshiki manufacturing and collaborations. We worked with Dandelion Chocolate,  Apothékary, Loloi Rugs, Mexi Mexi, and once again, worked with Tatcha on their holiday furoshiki campaigns. Our content was even on Sephora.com!  

We have a few more collaborations coming out in the next weeks and months, but we can't say anything right now 🤫.   

Press Coverage in Over 22 Media Outlets 

One of the literal big wins of the year was winning pro bono services from Dreamday, PR firm based in LA. We won their second annual accelerator program aimed to give small businesses like ours a leg up. Thanks to their team, we received 26 pieces of press over the length of the partnership in 22 news outlets. 

We were mentioned in publications like The Washington Post, CNN Underscored, BuzzFeed, Travel + Leisure, and more.  

Markets, Pop-Ups, and Workshops

Looking to 2025

This past year was a period of rapid growth and a lot of learning. We feel so grateful to all of our customers, partners, and the PR firm Dreamday for being part of this incredible success. We have fun plans for 2025 including new products on the roadmap, fresh prints, more collaborations, workshops, and custom furoshiki deals. 

Thank you so much! We wish you all a Happy Holidays and Happy New Year 2025! 

Andrea, Tyler, and Keiko