The founder of the eponymous jewellery and fashion accessories brand talks lockdown, new product and the exciting potential of the ‘new normal’
Katie, how was lockdown? We’ve been amazed and inspired by how everyone has handled the lockdown and have collectively managed to turn it into a success story for the business. We’ve been faced with new challenges, such as working remotely across the board, however teams have truly adapted and embraced the opportunity to pull together. To keep a close eye on morale, we’ve been using regular HR surveys for our teams to complete and have been so pleased by the positive responses. Everyone is embracing the change.
How does it feel to be back in business? Excited would be an understatement; it’s what we live and breathe! Our retailers are at the heart of our business and we’ve been really looking forward to seeing their doors open to customers once again. New changes are in place and together, we’ve established a new and exciting way of operating!Â
Changes in the way you’re operating? Our stores are now practising social distancing and with government guidelines in place at all times to ensure the safety of both the staff and customers. We’ve also put various measures in place for our warehouse staff to ensure they’re safe and comfortable going about their work. As a team we’re settling into our new normal. Â
How are stock levels? Stock levels are not an issue. Due to this year’s circumstances, we’re left with wonderful stock levels to supply not only our UK retailers, but also the US and the whole of Europe – including France, Italy, Norway and more, and with guaranteed smooth delivery thanks to the measures taking place in our warehouse.
Additional support for retailers? A lot of energy went into our Shop Small campaign to help support shopping locally throughout this time and we’re actively encouraging this movement via both our website and social media. Our Customer Service team are happy to walk new retailers through each and every step of the way, from an introduction to our various support programs such as dropshipping, to showing how our much loved Shop Local campaign has been supporting and promoting our stockists through widespread marketing. This can be found via our B2B website and marketing emails.
We’re so pleased to be running several limited time offers throughout the season, plus some exciting promotions which were announced at our AW20 Virtual Launch. For retailers who are interested in hearing more, this is a fabulous opportunity for them to access our virtual showroom after getting setup as a customer by our wonderful Customer Service team. We’ve gone above and beyond to extend all of our offers this season and to ensure everyone has as much support as we can possibly give them.
How are you driving awareness to your product ranges? A huge amount of work has gone on behind the scenes, from filming content to 3D tours and so much more! This takes place in not only our head office showroom, but also more local showrooms across the UK and America. It’s an incredibly exciting new venture for us and a great opportunity to encourage our retailers to continue engaging with us while still talking to our lovely sales agents.
Alongside using virtual tours to help bring our products to life, we’ve also created a huge amount of video content and photographed new lookbooks to enable customers to get a better view of our product range and the inspiration behind each collection. Eventually, we’ll be able to take one-on-one appointments again with social distancing in place – one of the many benefits of our private showroom. This will allow retailers to book the safe space, ready to immerse themselves in our new season products.
