How life has changed since I last wrote this blog. I have been meaning to write much sooner and keep you up to date with what’s going on but it seems instagram is probably the only thing I have managed. I thought we would have extra time on our hands and would enter a creative period of productivity, but alas this hasn’t happened. In fact the opposite happened, a general mind fog set in bringing with it a lack of any creativity. Making us question everything we did, procrastinating over every little decision, whilst we digested all the information being flung at us.
Luckily Easter coincided with the beginning of lockdown and we had very little time to remain in this state. We saw sales similar to xmas. Creative kits to do at home have been so popular and kids have wanted to chalk it, cook it, create and stamp their way through this isolation period. Creativity has conquered. Activity based products have become a way of life. Although we haven’t got any of our other staff members in at the moment we managed to coerce our two boys into helping (they did a grand job) and continue trading.
Home study was definitely out of the window for a while.
Over this period we have realised how important our production chain has been in keeping our products in stock and has been the main influence in helping us maintain production. All of our suppliers and manufacturers are based in the UK and although lead times are a little longer than normal, they certainly haven’t stop us sending out our items. It has been this human contact and the ability to have an open dialogue with them that has really helped us. Our relationship with each one has become even more important, from t shirt and packaging suppliers to our postal and courier services.
As we prepare for the reopening of our shop and the wholesale orders start coming back in, we feel a lot more positive. As a small business you can adapt pretty quickly and we are. With new investment in our web site (built late last year)looking at other Btb wholesale platforms instead of trade shows, regularly updating all the other platforms we sell on and continuous investment in photography and video. We realise all of these different portals are as important as each other and remain optimistic that we not only can survive this imminent recession but that we can grow.
In the future when we look back we will see that this moment in time is pivotal and will be like looking back at the beginning of the industrial revolution. This pandemic has created a huge shift in how we work and ultimately how and where we live. Social platforms are taking over as retail platforms, zoom and google conference calling ( I love it) and online ordering for local pick up is becoming the norm. The face of design, manufacturing and retail to name a few has totally changed and is definitely here to stay.