Hilary Marino began as an entrepreneur at age 13, selling Beanie Babies after signing up for her first eBay account.
Now, at age 29, the former stuffed animal saleswoman is the owner of Hello Caroline, a fashion boutique with locations in Coolidge Corner and on Newbury Street.
“When eBay first started, my dad was kind of into it,” Marino said. “He was always [looking] for good deals … and so he kind of got me into it because I was always peeking over his shoulder, trying to see what he was up to. So he actually set me up with my own account … and the first thing that I was actually doing on there [was] buying and selling Beanie Babies.”
As she grew older, Marino got more involved in the online consignment business, selling old clothing she no longer wanted. She also became involved in eBay’s jewelry market, which would eventually serve as her true entrepreneurial foundation.
“I started buying and selling wholesale jewelry that I found online,” Marino said. “I would find these items that were popular on eBay. I knew how to check how many searches were happening on eBay … so I would just find things that were really popular and then I would [find] them wholesale and buy them in bulk.”
After graduating with high honors from Lehigh University with a degree in finance, Marino accepted a job with Macy’s in New York City. There, Marino learned about the reality of the fashion industry: both the positives and the negatives.
“The best part was that all of the people that I worked with there were awesome,” Marino said. “[They were] really nice people, everyone was very supportive of each other … I feel like a lot of times, in the movies and stuff, they portray fashion-y offices as being really catty. That wasn’t my experience at all. It wasn’t ‘[The] Devil Wears Prada.’”
However, within Macy’s largely corporate environment, Marino said she found herself feeling underutilized.
“There wasn’t a lot of creativity or upper-level thinking,” she said. “My scope of work just wasn’t big enough for where my mind was … I would [get] bored and I just generally wasn’t happy. I would just spend a lot of time staring at the wall.”
After three years at Macy’s, Marino quit and moved back to her hometown, Concord. She wasn’t sure what her next move would be, she said, but she knew she wasn’t ready to jump into another corporate job right away. To fill her newfound free time, Marino revisited an old pastime: eBay.
“In the meanwhile, I [started] buying and selling clothes on eBay again because it was [a] comfortable thing for me to do,” she said. “I started getting a following on eBay. I started getting traction, and then I was like, ‘I think these clothes are good enough that I could start my own standalone website and start getting my own customers outside of eBay.’”
Marino created her first online store in 2012, under the name Hilary Caroline Boutique (H.C.B.), with the help of a popular e-commerce building tool called Shopify. In 2014, the service helped Marino expand to a brick-and-mortar store in Coolidge Corner called Her Closet Boston. The name change was “meant to reflect the dream closet of her local clientele,” the company’s website reads.
“A big vision for [Hello Caroline] was being the best of both worlds,” Marino said. “If people want to go online and browse, they can … but then a lot of people, you still want to be able to come in. You want to touch the clothes, you want to try them on.”
This summer, following the success of her first location at Coolidge Corner, Marino opened a second location on Newbury Street and renamed the entire business Hello Caroline.
“I feel like we’re still getting the word out about being here,” Marino said. She later said, “But I find that most customers, once [they] come in the door, they really like it here … which feels really promising.”
To those aspiring to enter the fashion industry, Marino’s story can serve as a testament to hard work and relentless creativity.
“I [tried] to figure out where that kind of mind could fit in at a fashion company,” Marino said. “What I would say is: take whatever you’re good at, and you can probably find a position in fashion.”
A very thoughtful piece. Hilary’s resourcefulness and entrepreneurial qualities are a great example of young women who are competing and succeeding in the business community.