Althea Johnson inducted into eBay Hall of Fame

January 4, 2021

Finding a niche that’s sustainable and something she’s passionate about took some time for Althea Johnson to discover.

It was worth waiting.

To mark eBay’s 25th anniversary, the online marketplace leader unveiled its Hall of Fame to recognize the entrepreneurial spirit of 25 unique eBay sellers from across Canada.

Johnson made the select list.

She set up a store online with eBay in March 2017, selling Korean skincare and designer sunglasses.

“My business grew and got established out of that eBay account and for that I am very grateful to the marketing team in Toronto,” said Johnson who is also a fashion, skincare and travel blogger.

It was by accident that she discovered Korean skincare while on vacation in Hawaii with an East Asian friend in April 2017.

“In the hotel room in the evening, she took out these Korean sheet masks and put one on her face,” recalled Johnson. “I was like, ‘What are you doing?’ I had never seen anything like that before and I didn’t know what it was for. She told me she had family in Hong Kong that would go to Seoul in South Korea on weekends to buy Korean skin care.”

As someone who suffered from eczema since age two and developed severe cystic acne at 18, she was looking for a solution for skin disorders.

“I have extremely sensitive skin that always reacted to products, resulting in me getting hyperpigmentation acne scars,” said Johnson. “After trying a sheet mask, I noticed the next morning that the eczema I had at the time along my neck and side of the face was going away with just one application for 20 minutes.”

With a trip to South Korea with her nieces booked for the summer of 2017, Johnson capitalized on the opportunity to research skin products.

In recent years, South Korea has become a key player in the global beauty industry, with high-quality masks, serums and essences flooding the market.

Althea Johnson is a successful entrepreneur (Photo contributed)

“My nieces had acne at the time and after using the products in the evening, they found that the inflammation, soreness and redness would go down,” she said. “As I tried to find out more about the ingredients and formulations they used, that’s how I discovered result-oriented techniques and products to help alleviate issues with my sensitive skin and reduce my eczema and acne breakouts.”

Back in Toronto, Johnson ran out of products and learnt the only way she could re-order was online from South Korea or the United States where Korean skin care was introduced in 2011.

Through research, she found a distributor.

“I could tell this was something that was going to be revolutionary because the skin care products are popular in other parts of the world,” Johnson, who has a professional diploma in Digital Marketing, noted.

Starting with an online presence, she transitioned to pop-up markets around the city before launching a retail store in the Little Italy district just nine days before the COVID-19 pandemic forced business into lockdown.

Proprlifestyle is located at 458 Ossington Ave., just north of College St.

“There was a lot of uncertainty at that time and it was devastating initially for me to have to close the store because I bought a lot of inventory for the launch,” Johnson pointed out.

Proprlifestyle Korean Skincare & Accessories (Photo contributed)

Reverting to the online store enabled her to use the digital space to enhance her business during the pandemic.

“I am fortunate because of the product space I am in,” she said. “It’s skin care, more women are at home and they want to do more self-care. From the get-go, I had people messaging and emailing me saying they were having skin reactions and developing rashes and acne because of stress. It started off with me advising people and then they would buy a product that was appropriate for their concern.”

With word-of-mouth marketing leading to an exponential increase in sales and unable to rely on Canada Post that has been overwhelmed since the start of the pandemic, Johnson was forced to deliver products to customers in the Greater Toronto Area and the Golden Horseshoe.

“I was in my store alone processing online orders that were just sprouting up from eBay and my online store and customers were communicating with me through eBay messaging as well as Instagram and Facebook,” she said.

In addition to designer sunglasses and curated Korean skin care, the store’s product line includes custom-made vegan lip-gloss, handmade luxury bags and Moroccan slip-ons and Bohemian jewelry.

Proprlifestyle carries an extensive line of Korean Skincare and Accessories (Photo contributed)

Johnson credits her father – Alvin Johnson is 85 – for instilling an entrepreneurial spirit in his daughter.

When he and some his siblings flew from Jamaica to England in the late 1950s, they encountered signs advertising flats to rent with the proviso, ‘No Blacks, No Irish, No Dogs’

“My father and his brothers decided to put the money away from the jobs they had and use it to buy flats and rent the rooms,” she said. “Out of necessity, that was the business they started. They had real estate rentals all their lives. Dad took me along when he went to collect rent money and when we moved to Canada in 1973, he invested in rental properties here. He had a limited education in Jamaica and blue-collar jobs, but he was always entrepreneurial. He owned variety stores and nursing homes.”

After graduating with a Business degree from Ryerson University, Johnson returned to England for six years. Within the first 12 months, she and a friend bought a flat in Canary Wharf that’s a thriving urban hub in London.

Before coming back to Canada, she sold the accommodation and purchased a condo in Toronto.

“That’s when I got the real estate bug and started investing in downtown Toronto,” said Johnson whose mother has a Social Work degree from McMaster University. “Pharmaceutical sales was my main career with the property investment on the side. With all of that, I still wanted to have my own business. The only problem is you can’t be a business owner when you are doing pharmaceutical sales. So I sold one of my rental properties and I said I would give myself two years to start a business and establish it. If it didn’t work, I could always go back to what I did or do something else.”

Starting from scratch with her money, Johnson has a flourishing business and is in a Hall of Fame three years later.

The eBay Hall of Fame program showcases the diversity of sellers that have used eBay over the last quarter-century, selling products from used laser pointers to new shoes, sports memorabilia, handmade jewellery and everything in between to buyers in Canada and across the globe.

With more than 1.5 billion items to explore and over $1 billion spent by Canadians every year, the breadth and depth of eBay's selection is unrivalled.