July Lu and Chen Don have three daughters and now they have three stores — sort of — as well, one for each child.
They opened their first Active Baby location in North Vancouver back in 2009, 18 months after the birth of their first child. They now have three girls — ages eight, five and two — and recently opened their second Active Baby location at the Langley Crossing Shopping Centre.
The third store is actually their online sales, which Lu says takes a lot of time and energy as well.
The store is built around the concept of facilitating a green, active lifestyle for families with babies and young children. The store also hosts parenting education seminars and baby product clinics.
“As parents ourselves, we were looking for quality baby gear,” Lu explained.
Living in North Vancouver, Lu maintained an active lifestyle, hanging out with other mothers. The group would take their young children on hikes, walks and even snowshoeing.
“Every time we went outside, we always talked about where to buy backpacks and strollers and products,” she said.
This prompted Lu and Chen to team up and open their first Active Baby location.
The store promotes an active lifestyle for parents and kids.
The opened up their second location in the fall, and held the official grand opening last Saturday (March 19), now that all the construction is complete on their 2,200 square foot store.
Wanting to expand, they consulted with their vendors, suppliers and customers on possible locations for a second location.
“A lot of the suppliers highly recommended Langley, mainly because there are a lot of young families moving to this area,” Lu said.
“It is a developing (area), lots of young families, lots of young kids and babies.”
They visited Langley and liked the thriving shopping area.
“It looked like a lot of activity and we thought this was the right place for us to open a second location,” she said.
The Langley location — 302 6339 200 St. — had three employees with both Lu and her husband working full-time in both stores.