Life in The Time of Corona
Wow what crazy times we have all been through in the last 5 months and our business has ridden the same roller-coaster too.
We have learnt to adapt to these strange times which have seen us doing so many things in new ways.
- We have had photo shoots via Zoom with my photographer acting as both photographer and hand model.
- We took part in the Not on the High Street Father’s Day TV advert which meant filming our wallet ourselves which was inserted into the advert. This involved so many Zoom calls with art direction and the product team working with the ad agency and myself and then onto the person filming the product all in totally different locations.
- Our office learnt to adapt very quickly to comply to the Covid-19 procedures necessary to keep our team and customers safe. We’ve been working in shifts and in different spaces in the office with some of the team working from home.
- We have seen sales of thoughtful personalised gifts increase and we’ve managed to stay on top of the orders getting them personalised and sent out in record times.
Product Photo Shoots "Isolation Style"
There Have However Been Some Casualties
We haven’t come out of this completely unscathed as, although our online sales have seen growth, our retail outlets have certainly felt the pressure.
It was with a sad and heavy heart that we had to close our store on Gabriel's Wharf and also our outlet on Portobello Road. Portobello Road was particularly special to us as it was where we first started back in August 2005. We had to review our business and realised that our strength had become online retailing and this was the area that we needed to focus our resources on.
Getting New Gift Ideas Ready For Christmas 2020?
We are now working hard on the final sampling of our new Christmas Gift ranges which again is happening virtually, with our workshops in India, photographers and with the team at Not On The High Street.
We are waiting for the last samples to arrive here this week and then we’ll be ready to shoot and give you a few sneak previews. We are focusing a lot on sport and leisure related products and gifts this year and have developed our cycling range as well as golf, tech and music.
We are really positive about the second half of the year and despite the difficult times that we will all continue to face we hope that other small businesses like ours can survive.
We have been happy to see that these times have reinforced people’s efforts to shop small and support small UK businesses and long may that continue.