A Journey Back to the Water
For our founder, family vacations were always to the ocean, initially North Myrtle Beach, and then when his parents moved to the Boston area, Cape Cod and Maine, creating a lifelong love of the ocean. Raising a family in the Seattle area meant only one beach trip per year, usually the Oregon coast but an occasional visit elsewhere as well. During Bill’s first trip to Hawaii, Oahu, in 2016, an idea emerged. There for college football, he also trekked to North Shore to watch the Vans Triple Crown of Surfing where a lightbulb went off and it hit him, he’s a beach guy. This prompted him to ask was there a one stop shop for beach goods online, and as there wasn’t, this is where the idea for beachgoods.com took hold.
From Spark to Stewardship
Launched in mid 2017, beachgoods.com was a response to that gap—but over time the need became clearer. Moving to Oregon in 2018 revealed a stunningly beautiful coastline and amazing rivers emptying into it, but also alarming water quality issues. Regular visits back to midcoast Maine revealed a warming Gulf which was a dramatic change from his youth. Having watched the Atlantic cod fishery collapse, observing salmon populations decline in the Pacific Northwest, learning how much plastic waste was entering our waterways and the role our ocean, lakes, ponds, rivers and streams play in sustaining life on this planet made it clear that protecting our waterways is absolutely NECESSARY and URGENT!
Why beachgoods.com Exists
beachgoods.com was built to connect what we love, recreating at the beach, with what we need to protect our waterways (e.g. the ocean, lakes, ponds, rivers and streams). And like the state of our waterways, mixed, our work towards developing a sustainable marketplace for beach gear / goods is just getting started, but we are further along than anyone else (more on that shortly). While every product we carry we’d love to be sustainable, that’s not reality today, but that’s our goal and we invite you to join us in this journey.
1% for the Planet (and Beyond)
We believe every purchase can and should have a bigger purpose. That’s why beachgoods.com is a corporate member of 1% for the Planet, committing at least 1% of annual revenue to organizations focusing on aquatic, marine and freshwater, conservation, education, and science. These aren’t short-term fixes—they are long-term investments in healthier oceans, lakes, ponds, rivers and streams.
The bigger picture
This isn’t just Bill’s story—it belongs to all of us. The water that connects us and is our lifesource is under threat, but together, we can turn the tide. At beachgoods.com, every purchase is a step toward a healthier ocean, lakes, ponds, rivers and streams. Protecting the water starts with the choices we make, and an easy choice is to shop at beachgoods.com.