10. Dec, 2025
Small Talk City is a fast-growing children’s consignment brand based in Berkeley, California. Founded by Jillian Leigh Lewis - a longtime creative and mom of two - Small Talk City began as an online shop built to make kids’ wardrobes feel calmer, more intentional, and more sustainable.
From the beginning, the shop’s identity wasn’t just about resale. It was about neighborhood. Jillian built Small Talk City as a gathering space for thoughtful families, blending curated style with community care.
(Source: Small Talk City Instagram opening event, storefront)
The resale model, built for families
After settling in Berkeley and becoming a parent, Jillian experienced firsthand how quickly kids outgrow everything. Clothes rotate constantly. Sizes change overnight. Clutter builds fast. She launched Small Talk City to keep “good things in motion,” helping families resell what no longer fits while finding beautiful next-in-line pieces that are gentle on kids and kind to the planet.
Small Talk City consigns gently used contemporary and vintage children’s clothing from newborn through age 12. Consignors choose cash payouts or store credit, a circular model that keeps closets flowing and fuels repeat shopping.
To support busy parents, Jillian built community-first services: free Berkeley-area pickups, pop-up events, and regular “Pop-In” days for easy consignment drop-off or donation.
(Source: www.smalltalkcity.com webshop built with Shopify)
When regular retail tools stop working for resale
As demand grew, so did the operational complexity. Children’s resale is a special kind of inventory chaos:
Every item is one-of-one with its own size, condition, and seasonality.
Every piece needs a clear link to a consignor and a payout terms.
Pop-ups and online drops mean inventory moves fast and in multiple places at once.
With a physical store opening in December, intake and tracking had to be ready for a much higher in-person volume.
Traditional e-commerce tools assume you buy inventory once and sell the same SKU endlessly. That model breaks instantly in consignment. Without resale-first workflows, it becomes difficult to track who owns what, what sold where, and who gets paid.
Jillian needed a backend that matched the real nature of her business, not a workaround. In 2025 she switched her operations from Spreadsheets to Circle-Hand.
Building a resale-first backbone with Circle-Hand
To keep Small Talk City curated and community-centered while preparing for the upcoming store opening, Jillian adopted Circle-Hand as her operational foundation, with Shopify continuing as the customer-facing shop.
Circle-Hand now serves as the single source of truth for everything behind the scenes:
Unified inventory and consignor database
Resale-first intake for unique children’s pieces
Automated consignor splits based on Small Talk City’s 30% cash / 50% credit model
Streamlined workflows for pop-ups, pickups, and drops
Clear consignor visibility to maintain trust in a community-driven system
This alignment between mission and infrastructure replaced juggling spreadsheets with a setup designed for real resale.
Small Talk City’s journey shows that when tools are built for resale, a neighborhood-rooted consignment shop can scale without losing its heart.
