At this Miami marketplace, small business owners find community and learn to grow
'I had a love for fashion, and I started working part-time at 16 at Dadeland Mall,' Ceballos, 45, told the Miami Herald. 'I loved to be around clothes and people.'
That passion for fashion has since blossomed into something she never imagined. Ceballos now relies upon her decades of retail experience as the organizer of Capsule, a marketplace at Allapattah's River Landing Shops designed to support small business owners, including many Latina entrepreneurs.
At Capsule, shop owners have their own spaces to sell their products, creating something akin to an indoor farmers market. Ceballos helps them understand how they can improve their businesses and work together to share customers.
Capsule has space for between 12 to 20 businesses, depending on the size of the space required by tenants. There are also opportunities for a different set of vendors to sell their products in front of the store every Sunday and on the last Saturday of the month. Almost all of Capsule's tenants started out as vendors selling products on tables in front of the space itself or at farmers markets.
'I like seeing the evolution of businesses that start small. Seeing that happen is such a proud moment,' Ceballos said.
When Ceballos was working her mall jobs as a teen, she was also a student at Miami Killian. By her senior year, she had already begun learning store management, and she continued to work in retail after her 1998 graduation. After a brief hiatus from retail where Ceballos worked as a flight attendant, she returned to Miami in 2005 and pivoted back into the retail sector.
When the company she was working for had layoffs in 2019, Ceballos decided to put her retail experience to work and, within six weeks of her job ending, launched a clothing business. The challenge of starting a business proved to be a learning experience.
'I have background experience in managing big teams, but it's different when you're by yourself,' she said.
The first few months for Ceballos' business went well — until the start of the pandemic in March 2020. She quickly realized that people weren't buying clothes because they were generally staying at home.
'I just thought of ways to pivot, because I wasn't going to give up,' she said. 'I started selling fun fashionable masks.'
As COVID-19 restrictions lessened, Ceballos began attending farmers markets and created an Instagram account called Herpreneur By Liz to showcase the different small business owners she met.
But Ceballos noticed ways that their businesses could be improved. Some business owners needed social media profiles and websites to better engage their customers. For others, an improved customer service experience could make a difference. 'People missed out on opportunities,' she said.
As Ceballos' videos featuring small businesses gained traction on her social media, she began producing events that featured local woman-owned businesses.
By 2024, Ceballos had built a reputation for producing pop-up markets throughout South Florida. After her pop-up market at River Landing did well, representatives from the shopping center asked her to come onboard as a business consultant for Capsule.
In her new role, Ceballos' background has given her perspective and credibility that seems to resonate with the other small business owners in the space.
'I have my clothing boutique in there, and we are all brainstorming on ideas around collaborative things we can do to work together and make a stronger impact,' she said. For example, they might post social media content that features clothing from one person's business and shoes from another — or encourage customers to take the same mix-and-match approach.
At a time when e-commerce has taken over and people are quick to shop online, Ceballos believes concept stores like Capsule represent a positive future for in-person retail. She sees that small business owners can band together to achieve success rather than spending more money to lease or buy their own space. She has also noticed how customers respond to being a part of that community.
'It's a totally different, unique experience, and the customer feels that connection,' she said.
Seeing small businesses elevate themselves in real time is something that empowers Ceballos, and she wants to keep seeing that moving forward.
'I want to continue to support the small business community and my community platform,' she said.
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