Paradise by parcel

Wei Fang remembers with gratitude the times she received notes and care packages from home while earning her arts education and business degrees on the East Coast.

The packages came "not often enough," she said. "So when you did get something, it was so special, even if it was a postcard or a little bit of food."

She recalls receiving a Raiatea Helm CD while working toward her M.B.A. degree at Columbia University, "and it was the best thing. I wouldn’t have even known she had a CD out, but it was one of those gifts you cherish. It was the dead of winter, and it brought this ray of sunshine into my dreary little apartment."

She never forgot that feeling, and aims to re-create it for others through her newest endeavor, Makana. The art curator and founder of the Interisland Terminal arts collective teamed with Kili­kina Mahi, formerly senior program officer with the Hawaii Community Foundation, to create what is, on its surface, a shopping or gift subscription service. But through Makana the duo — true to their background in community development — also aims to help Hawaii’s entrepreneurial community grow.

Subscription shopping services have been around for decades. In the days when vinyl records were popular, your father may have been lured by Columbia House’s offer of 11 records for a penny with a membership contract to buy one record a month at full price.

You can find any number of buying clubs to match your chosen obsession with a monthly shipment of steak, flowers, fruit, wine or cheesecake.

The difference in recent years has been the growing number of premium subscription services. In the beauty world, companies like Glossybox and Birchbox offer cosmetics from any number of brands, though the contents of each box is generally kept secret until delivered. There are even gift boxes for pets, such as Barkbox and Pawbox, and activity boxes for children.

Fang has been a loyal subscriber to Birchbox, "even though I’m not a cosmetics person," she said. The subscription services make it fun to check the mailbox again, and she said shoppers seem to enjoy the excitement and mystery involved with discovering what’s in the package.

With her own Birchbox subscription, she said, "There’s a bit of a surprise aspect. There’s always something I really do like or something I wanted to try out. It forces you to try new things. I also like the educational aspect of their campaigns in a box. They might send 10 percent of proceeds to support schools in Haiti. It’s a unique way of being part of a community or being involved."

And that is what she and Mahi wanted to accomplish with Makana. Accompanying each gift item are stories about the producers and farmers involved, with additional images and video featured at the Makana website, hellomakana.com.

Makana shipped its first boxes last fall, featuring made-in-Hawaii products ranging from handmade notecards and music CDs to edibles and bath-and-beauty items.

"We’re vetting everything, looking for things that are off the beaten path," Fang said.

While initial orders came from friends and family, the fledgling company now ships to 125 cities in 24 countries, with many orders from people who have visited the state.

"We get a lot of feedback from people who have vacationed here and say they always bring back the same gifts. So they’re happy to discover something new and find high-quality gifts while getting that insider knowledge people enjoy being a part of."

Among potential customers, they count more than 800,000 Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders living outside of the state, as well as the 6,000 to 7,000 high school graduates bound for mainland colleges each year.

Makana is offering four subscription plans ranging from $27 a month for 12 months worth of gifts prepaid to $30 per month pay-as-you-go. In addition to the monthly service, Fang and Mahi recently introduced Keiki Makana with a pink or blue option to greet a newborn or as a first-birthday luau gift.

Each $58 Keiki Makana box features a Keiki Kruisers onesie (size 6-10 months), Tutu Nene stuffed animal (sales of which benefit Hawaii Volcanoes National Park), an Aloha Zoo paperboard book, Filthy Baby handmade soap and a Kahala Fresh dried apple-banana snack.

Rather than simply buying merchandise wholesale, Fang said, she and Mahi work with vendors to find out how they can be of assistance, whether offering the name of a good printer or focusing on operational details that would strengthen a company’s ability to get more products to market.

"I’d always been involved with artists from a community standpoint and had friends with small businesses, and they always kind of needed help.

"It’s hard to do business in Hawaii. Shipping costs are high, and getting goods to market is difficult," Fang said. "With most small businesses it’s a one-man show, so most people want the opportunity to tap into some support, whether it’s making press contacts or a source of better-quality packaging. Everyone’s always looking for a resource."

Makana resulted as a matter of connecting the dots, from helping homegrown businesses advance to treating those far from home to a taste of the islands and "figuring out how to bring these two ideas together."

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On the Net:

» hellomakana.com