The Indie Shelf

Bio

Meet Sabeen! Sabeen was born in Karachi, Pakistan but raised in the US. She lived in New Jersey but moved to Massachusetts where she went to high school and college. After graduating from Northeastern University with a degree in toxicology, Sabeen chose Houston, Texas as her next place of residence.  A quick two year detour took her to New York to pursue her masters in Cosmetic Chemistry from Fairleigh Dickinson University. After completing her degree she headed back down south. Sabeen eventually ended up in Philadelphia after getting married and has been here since 2015.

Origin Story

The idea for The Indie Shop originated from Sabeen’s first business venture. She launched her own cosmetic brand, Muskaan. Working on the Muskaan brand, Sabeen learned about all the obstacles you come across when building a small brand. Exposure to customers, buyers, and even social media was tough. All of this is amplified even more when dealing with a tight budget. Sabeen did ALL the trade shows possible to help expose Muskann to retailers but it was a failure.

But it was through this failure that Sabeen got the idea for The Indie Shelf. She realized she was spending most of her budget on the expensive trade shows that small businesses couldn’t really afford.  The wheels started turning for Sabeen. She noticed Philly did not have a shop that focused just on small brands. And so, in February of 2019, The Indie Shop was born. “I wanted to create a space for small brands that aren’t in larger retailers to showcase the unique and effective products they’ve created. I also wanted to bring in brands from all over the world to give access to the hard to find brands for our clients.”