How Lift Your Table® Became the #1-Selling Folding Table Riser on Amazon

Used by Nordstrom, Urban Outfitters, Aramark, & More!

Bethany Smith, Co-Founder | CEO, Lift Your Table®

Bethany Smith is an entrepreneur turned ergonomics innovator based out of a suburb of  Palm Springs, California.

Her company, B Team Solutions, is the originator of Lift Your Table® folding table risers, a simple, yet much-needed and highly effective ergonomic safety product.

Starting 12 years ago, her business has grown from selling to neighboring food vendors in a local street fair, to innovating the category on the world’s largest marketplace, Amazon.com! Her folding table extenders are also benefiting workers in some of the world’s largest companies by improving the working conditions for thousands worldwide.

Her company is certified as both a woman-owned and minority-owned enterprise and she is proud to be a manufacturer who is based out of the United States. Bethany was kind enough to share her story and give a little insight into how her life-changing product was born out of necessity and has launched her on a path to making work safer for workers across numerous industries.

Where did you get the idea for Lift Your Table® folding table risers?

Before I got into making folding table risers, I ran a catering/concession business in Palm Springs.

One of our biggest employee challenges was ongoing complaints about the tables we used. Folding tables are the industry standard for caterers, but every table had the same issue, the table was too low to work from in a standing capacity.

Workers regularly complained that their backs, necks, legs, and more would hurt after spending long hours bent over the folding tables preparing and serving food.

To help our employees, I began to look for a solution. At that time, there were no products commercially available that were specially designed to raise folding tables.

When searching for a solution, my partner and I noticed that other companies with the same problem were using furniture blocks, bed risers, or cinder blocks. However, these solutions either were not safe, sturdy enough for the job, or professional looking.

So we went to work in our warehouse (garage) and came up with our first version of our Lift Your Table® folding table risers.

We introduced our folding table risers to our employees, who loved them because lifting the folding tables eliminated their back pain and they immediately felt the benefits. They had an easier time servicing customers and working comfortably for longer, and we actually saw increased productivity and job satisfaction.

We also noticed customers who used our condiment table benefited because the table was at a more ergonomically comfortable height. Other vendors in the street fair noticed our risers and wanted to buy them, and soon we were selling to them too.

How did you start selling Lift Your Table® folding table risers?  

After seeing the demand for this product locally, we decided to sell Lift Your Table® folding table risers online.

Within that first year of selling online, we simply couldn’t keep up with demand, and it outpaced our ability to produce them ourselves. That’s when we realized we had created a product people needed and loved.

Lift Your Table® folding table risers, Counter Height (Original Foot)

So we sought out a manufacturer and working with our engineering group, we came up with a higher quality product that was more professional and more durable and began to market them on Amazon and other online marketplaces, and our own website. We also began to expand into more SKUs for different heights.

Flash forward today: not only did we create the entire folding table riser category itself, but we maintain our position as the #1 folding table riser on Amazon.com.

What factors do you think led you to early success?

Our success was based on the fact that there was a large need for our product. Folding tables were designed to be sat at, but they are also used to be worked behind in a standing capacity. When our brand became known to different demographic groups like DJs, groomers, crafters, teachers, and safety professionals, it began to take off in sales.

What challenges did your company face early on?

The challenge of starting a manufacturing company is that it’s very difficult to find a mentor or anyone to consult who has taken a concept and developed it into something that is ready for market. Simple things from figuring out how to package a product, how to price it, what colors to use, and marketing strategies are things that we basically had to figure out ourselves.

Over the years our team has grown to include working with partners from different industries who have helped us develop our manufacturing, distribution, and marketing strategies. This model has allowed us to grow our operations while maintaining a model that is more simple and cost effective.

While building any company from the ground up is challenging, our other biggest challenge was navigating the early days of e-commerce. The whole process was (and continues to be) simply daunting.

How do you see the market changing? Are your customers changing?

When we first started out, our main customers were consumer groups such as quilters, crafters, teachers, and exhibitors. Over time, we realized our product appealed to a much broader base of consumers than we even imagined.

In the last few years, we began to do annual customer surveys to do a deep dive into who we’re helping. From this survey, we discovered our best and biggest customer was placing orders of large numbers of sets at a time.

What we discovered is that our best customers are businesses that realize the importance of worker safety and proper ergonomic workstations.

One of our biggest customer bases now is retailers who use our risers primarily in the back of the store areas and warehouses.

While many retailers supply stores with industrial tables and workstations, they often supplement with simple folding tables to keep up with their order fulfillment, sorting, customer pick-up areas, and even gift wrapping stations during the holidays.

While our folding table risers were important to a store’s normal operations, they became invaluable during the pandemic. I remember walking into a Newport Beach Nordstrom and seeing the store using folding tables to process online shopping orders.  What a surprise it was to see our folding table risers being used for the first time at retail!

Nordstrom and Nordstrom Rack use them for item sorting, order fulfillment, gift wrapping, making boxes, and creating additional storage under the table.

Since then, our folding table risers have become a “New Store Fixture” for every Nordstrom Rack in the United States and Canada.

We are partnering with more and more business to business clients and we see the positive impacts of our product in real time. The workers love them, and we love helping people have a safer and more productive workday.

You may quote me on this one: Lift Your Table® folding table risers is fast becoming a staple in every work and school environment and will soon be as commonplace as the folding table itself!

What do you see in the future for Lift Your Table®?

Because our risers are quickly becoming a standard safety product with warehouses, retailers, safety managers, distribution centers, and more, we project exponential growth within the next few years as we continue to reach out directly to businesses.

We are driven to make the following statement a reality: Anytime a folding table is sold to be used in a standing capacity, there is an opportunity to pair it with a set of Lift Your Table® folding table risers.

We also recognize that ergonomics is a growing industry, and we are committed to expanding our product offerings to give the consumers what they need.

Along these lines, we were so excited to recently expand our distribution to include custom tablecloths. Since the folding tables are higher, now they need longer tablecloths.

Our partnership with an established, United States based tablecloth manufacturer gives us the ability to  create custom tablecloths for any table height in more than 70+ colors. Now, our clients can get custom tablecloths sent to them in about a week for any professional event, such as trade shows, weddings, conferences, banquets, and more.

Beyond tablecloths, we are expanding into offering additional ergonomic products such as anti-fatigue mats and other products that align with our mission to bring quality products to market that improve the health, safety, and aesthetics of the work, school, and home environment.

Do you use folding tables in your workplace?

If you are a company that is using folding tables, you may be facing a big problem.

• According to the CDC… the cost of back pain to US companies is $225.8 Billion or $1,685/per employee per year in lost productivity alone.
• A large number of workers suffer from lower back pain due to improper ergonomics of their work environment, including those who work from folding tables in a standing capacity.

Lift Your Table® folding table risers are making an impact as a standard ergonomic safety product that is improving working conditions, boosting productivity, and preventing additional costs from workplace injuries.

Companies worldwide have used Lift Your Table® folding table risers to raise the height of folding tables and enhance workstations. With Lift Your Table® folding table risers, workers can set their workstations to the proper height and prevent fatigue, injury, and loss of productivity.

If you’re looking to improve the ergonomics of your workplace, click here to to learn how folding table risers can help your organization.

With the #1-selling folding table risers, you can…

Lift Your Table® & Save Your Back!