In the late 1990s, Tom and Joanne Sullivan were working the craft festival circuit in Southern California. Tom sold bamboo director’s chairs. Joanne sold hand-painted clothing. One afternoon, Joanne grabbed a scrap of bamboo from Tom’s workshop and used it to chop vegetables. Tom crafted a few cutting boards out of these scraps. On a whim, they brought a few to their next art show.
They sold out in minutes.
At the time, bamboo cutting boards were not widely available in the mainstream American market. The Sullivans began using Moso bamboo, a material durable enough for everyday food preparation and attractive enough to leave on the counter. What started as a repurposed furniture scrap helped introduce an innovative material to a familiar kitchen category.
“Overnight it just caught,” Tom recalled. “We got in a couple of stores, a couple of national accounts, and we worked like crazy in California buying bamboo from China and crafting our cutting boards.”
That was 25 years ago. Today, Totally Bamboo operates out of Escondido, California, employs 40 people across the United States, and generates over $35 million in annual revenue. The company sells more than 600 products through nearly every major American retailer: Costco, Target, TJ Maxx, Walmart, HomeGoods, Buc-ee’s, and more. Their products can also be found in roughly 2,500 independent kitchen and gift stores nationwide. And the Amazon store, where they’ve sold for about a decade, drives 30% of their total revenue.
A multi-channel product strategy that works with Amazon and 2,500 independent stores
The Sullivans didn’t stumble into the Amazon store. They waited. They spent 15 years building a supply chain, establishing retail relationships, and learning how to manage inventory at scale before they listed a single product. When they finally joined, they were terrified.
The Amazon store, where the Sullivan’s have sold for about a decade, drives 30% of Totally Bamboo’s overall revenue.
“We were scared to death,” Tom recalled. “We were afraid of those tickers where you see one sell and then suddenly thousands sell. And it did happen, but we finally grew to the point where we could handle that without failing.”
The company’s product development still runs on something decidedly low-tech: conversations with independent retailers. Those 2,500 mom-and-pop accounts feed the Sullivans a constant stream of customer feedback that shapes what they design next.
“They come back to us with a lot of input,” Tom said. “And when we bring this input to Amazon, it makes sense. The public wants what we put out because we’re constantly asking and trying new products.”
The state-shaped boards are a good example. A Texas cutting board is the kind of product a shopper doesn’t know they want until they’re searching for a gift. That discovery happens in the Amazon store, and it feeds back into the independent retail channel. The process works in both directions.
How Fulfillment by Amazon and Amazon Global Logistics let a 40-person team move 600 products
Today the company runs their Amazon business entirely with Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA), which handles storage, packing, shipping, and customer service on their behalf. In addition, they route about 70% of their inventory straight from their manufacturing partners through Amazon Global Logistics, a door-to-door ocean freight program that ships directly to Amazon’s fulfillment centers. The savings are significant. Before Amazon Global Logistics, every shipment had to land at Totally Bamboo’s own warehouse, get received, repackaged, and sent back out to Amazon customers or Amazon warehouses.
The operational side is where the story gets interesting for a 40-person company managing 600+ SKUs. Totally Bamboo uses Product Opportunity Explorer to scout new categories before committing to production. They pull Brand Analytics and Search Query Performance data to decide where to spend advertising dollars. And they’ve leaned into Amazon’s AI-powered listing tools to manage content across their catalog, work that used to consume entire afternoons per product.
“Writing a product listing used to sometimes take an entire afternoon between category research and crafting the right copy,” Kyle said. “Now it’s something that can be done in a fraction of that time.”
Tom was quick to clarify what that means for headcount. “It’s not displacing people. It’s a tool has significantly expanded what our team can accomplish.” he said.
Totally Bamboo puts its growth back into Escondido
Totally Bamboo sells more than 600 products through the Amazon store, which drives 30% of the company’s total revenue.
Five years ago, the Sullivans bought a 1911 building in downtown Escondido and spent years renovating it into their corporate headquarters. They recently finished and are opening a retail storefront on the ground floor. The mayor stops by. The community knows them.
“We are so well-known because of the Amazon awareness, people know of us, they may have scrolled past us, but that awareness is really important,” Tom said.
About 20 of their 40 employees work out of that Escondido office. The rest are spread across a shipping facility near Dallas and other operations. They’re part of a broader pattern. Independent sellers in the Amazon store employed over 2 million people across the country in 2025. More than 75,000 of them surpassed $1 million in sales that year. California, where the Sullivans are based, had among the most new independent sellers in 2025.
Joanne, who is originally from Jamaica, recently designed a “Destination Jamaica” cutting board. A portion of the proceeds go to Trees That Feed Foundation, which plants breadfruit trees and creates jobs across 20 countries. This project reflects what growth has made possible for Totally Bamboo: more opportunity to create meaningful products, support its team, and invest in causes close to its founders.