Blue Eyed Sun

Blue Eyed Sun - gorgeous greetings cards

BES Blog

  • Bioloco Loop flasks featured in Gift Focus Magazine

    Bioloco Loop Flasks - Gift Focus Magazine

    We are very excited have our gorgeous Bioloco Loop flasks featured on the cover of Gift Focus Magazine. The magazine is read by leading retailers and buyers across the UK and the coverage and response has been really positive so far.

    These stylish bioloco loop flasks have been a big hit with retailers. They they make great fashion accessories and help to reduce single-use plastic waste. These elegant shaped bottles keep drinks warm for up to 18 hours and cool for up to 12 hours. Each has a capacity of 500 ml (16.9 oz) and is made of double walled kitchen grade stainless steel 304.

    The beautiful design is complemented by a unique wooden lid and a silicon looped handle. Plus these eye catching accessories are BPA-free, Phthalate-free and toxin-free. Hand washing is recommended.

    Watch a short video about Bioloco Loop and our other products here

    See all Bioloco products

    Retailers can order online here

    Click here to buy one for someone special

  • A little light can change everything

    A little light can change everything

    With 2020 drawing to a close, many are glad to see the back of it. It's not the first time, we've been happy to move on from a particular year. Remember 2016, when we lost a host of talent from Bowie to Sinatra to Prince? The internet was filled with memes looking forward to telling 2016 to 'do one'. After a bad run of fortune for the Royal family in 1992, the Queen famously called it an ‘annus horribilis’ meaning ‘horrible year’.

    More recently, retailers were glad to leave 2019. According to the British Retail Consortium, 2019 saw the worst retail sales in 25 years. Our industry had a certain sense of cautious optimism at the start of 2020. Twelve months later, we are at the end what can only be described as an annus horribilis for the global population. The coronavirus pandemic and the health and economic shockwaves that have followed have been devastating for many.

    It’s been most tough for those who’ve lost loved ones to the coronavirus. The UK has suffered  over 80,000 excess deaths with London being particularly badly hit. Those needing hospital treatments have seen increased delays. Mental health issues, particularly in children, have significantly worsened. Unemployment has increased substantially. Those in hospitality, retail & wholesale and manufacturing have been significantly hit.

    Yet, despite the difficulties, it has been an incredibly special year. Many of us are closer to one another emotionally. We've spent more time on the phone, on zoom or by sending more cards. Some have found time to contribute to their communities or pursue new pastimes. We've come together on WhatsApp groups to co-ordinate support for those most vulnerable. Across the UK we applauded our NHS for all of their hard work. Scientists have worked hard to formulate vaccines to counter the virus.

    There’s been an unprecedented amount of support for campaigns like #ShopLocal, #SupportLocal and #YourLocal. Many shoppers bought Christmas gifts early from independents in certain parts of the country. Whilst city centre stores have suffered from the loss of commuters who are now working from home, support has been there in other ways. Cards Galore, the GCA and many of us in the industry rallied together to campaign for government to value them as essential and keep them trading. This has been a clear signal to the politicians of the importance of card and gift shop retail to all of us.

    The Job Retention Scheme and various financing options like Bounce Back Loans have been essential to the survival of many businesses in our sector, ourselves included. They were rolled out very quickly and effectively. Accountancy software companies like Sage altered their payroll solutions to make calculating and applying for the grants relatively painless.

    Many of us adapted how we operate in order to cover those furloughed. A number of us worked long hours to keep things afloat. It’s inspiring to hear the stories of families coming together to help their businesses survive. A few of our retailers adapted to ‘click and collect’ and ‘local delivery’ business models via social media and kept some cash going through their tills during Lockdowns. We all discovered what is important in our lives (and businesses) and what isn’t . 

    Our greeting card community has always been amazing, but we really stepped it up this year. Videos like Send a Card, Deliver a Smile by Lanther Black and the more recent Christmas collaboration by Gale Astley kept us all closer together. Raj from Davora built a fantastic new community website for the GCA. The GCA National Council has grown from strength to strength with its support of our industry. The Festive Friday and Thinking of You Week campaigns we started several years ago have gone international with the American and Australian card associations coming on board. Our CEO, Amanda Fergusson, regularly shared the positive power of greeting cards in the news. Mark Callaby from Ohh Deer and others on the council showed us all ways to support more diversity within our industry. 

    It’s the way we come together and cope with the adversity that is the gift ‘bad years’ like this annus horribilis give us. No matter happens in 2021 and no matter how horrible any day, month or year is, if you look closely enough, you will find something amazing in it. And in our darkest hour, that little light can change everything.

    Eight ways to deal with failure

    How to cope when things go wrong

    How to deal with shame in business

     

  • Bioloco Loop flasks available in 5 gorgeous new colours

    Bioloco Loop FlasksBlue Eyed Sun are very excited to add five gorgeous new colours to their beautiful new flasks called bioloco loop. There are now have a total of sixteen beautiful iridescent shades to choose from.

    These stylish bioloco loop bottles have been a big hit with retailers. Each has a capacity of 500 ml (16.9 oz) and is made of double walled kitchen grade stainless steel 304. These elegant shaped flasks keeps drinks warm for up to 18 hours and cool for up to 12 hours.

    The design is complemented by a unique wooden lid and a silicon looped handle. Plus these eye catching accessories are BPA-free, Phthalate-free and toxin-free. Hand washing is recommended.

    We all need to do our bit tackle the war on waste and these reusable bottles help users to reduce the million plastic bottles being sold every minute, most of which are not recycled with many polluting our oceans affecting wildlife.

    Watch a short video about Bioloco Loop and our other products here

    See all Bioloco products

    Retailers can order online here

    Click here to buy one for someone special

    Bioloco Loop Bottle Flasks

  • The secret to building a successful long lasting small business

    Secret To Building A Small Business

    Blue Eyed Sun has been trading for twenty years this year! It’s quite something to reach this business milestone, considering I am not a greeting card publisher. 

    Whilst the company has been successful and has always been profitable, I am most proud of the fact that it enabled a lifestyle in which we could spend lots of time with family, friends and loved ones, contribute so much to our industry and I could pursue my passion for travel and adventure.

    I recently shared our story with Therese Ørtenblad on her Let’s Talk Shop podcast and it got me thinking about how grateful I am for the time we’ve had in our industry and for everything we have accomplished. 

    It’s a privilege to run a business that is so resilient and has greeting cards at the very heart of our prosperity. The company endured the 2008 recession and is surviving the current coronavirus situation remarkably well. Our cards have made our retailers millions in sales and customers continue to feedback how well they sell. 

    This month I’d like to share what (apart from great selling products) has been most effective in building the endearing and enduring Blue Eyed Sun brand:

    PR & Marketing

    Having a good spread of PR & marketing approaches has avoided the vulnerability of having a single source for generating new business. Since starting, we have sent out hundreds of press releases and appeared in countess trade magazine articles. Every new product range has had a photo and press release sent out to editors that made it easy for them to cut and paste us into their publications. Once we grew big enough, we advertised regularly in the trade press to secure Blue Eyed Sun’s brand in the minds of our customers.

    In addition to this, our quarterly direct mailings of new brochures allowed retailers to see our products regularly outside of trade shows. We have exhibited at over a hundred exhibitions, which have been a regular source of sales, enquiries and market research. Our stands at them have always been modest, affordable and profitable. It’s a marketing strategy that has served us well.  

    In recent years our blog and social media content has driven a new generation of customers and retailers to us. We get a steady stream of qualified enquiries from our website each week. With a sizeable email list of great retailers and our useful monthly emails (that offer more than just adverts for products) we have high open and click through rates on our digital marketing. Every email we send results in sales, even when we are not ‘selling’.

    Entering awards has been another great way of getting our products seen by quality buyers. Whilst we’ve lost out on trophies more times than we’ve won, we are proud to have won a Gift of the Year award, a Henries trophy and a Queen’s Award for International Trade. We’ve had great PR from every nomination along the way.

    Over time our cards have wound up in so many shops and homes that new enquiries are often from retailers who have seen us elsewhere or received one of our cards and used our contact details on the back to add us to their list of suppliers.

    Sales & Distribution

    Whilst we have some large clients, a diversified customer base has helped Blue Eyed Sun remain resilient to market changes. Our loyal independent UK retailers have been key to our success and we love them for it. We’ve been able to maintain these relationships at trade shows, online and through our team of freelance sales agents. 

    International distributors have given us access to other markets. This month alone we have shipped thousands of cards abroad. Offering our cards in other languages and bespoke production has added further valuable sales strings to our bow.

    Our brochures make it easy for retailers who aren’t web savvy enough to order offline. For those that are, our B2B website has been incredible in bringing in sales and leads from smaller shops that agents might miss or territories we aren’t covered in, especially during this pandemic.

    Further important relationships are with brokers like Hallmark, UKG, Woodmansterne and others. All are instrumental in helping us to supply larger key accounts. In fact, the supermarkets, our website and international trade kept sales going through Lockdown this year (without any marketing spend).

    Mistakes

    Although it was fun, in hindsight, setting up our wedding stationery business, Ivy Ellen, was a mistake (as was not closing it down years ago). It was a distraction and we would have been more profitable without it. Ditto for from my brief dalliance with being a trade show organiser with the Fresh area at Spring Fair in 2010. 

    An industry friend of mine thinks the same of my involvement with the Ladder Club, the Greeting Card Association and the Giftware Association. These do take up time, but speaking at events and contributing on committees is about putting something back into an industry that has been very good to us. Same goes for the six marathons and other races I trained for and ran to raise funds for charities. It’s not all about making money.

    Some things that you try, just don’t work. Occasionally I have overspent on marketing. I’ve also kept bad staff and poor sales agents longer than I should have. You live and learn (mostly).

    Sometimes I’ve made a good decision, like our diversification into eco-friendly giftware which now make up half our sales. Our BambooCup business is a good example of how we were able to put an on trend product through the distribution systems we have built with Blue Eyed Sun and scale rapidly into a new sector of the market.

    Systems

    Years ago, I decided to work on the business rather than in it. The result was a series of systems, operations manuals and procedures that have kept managing the business easier than most. It’s made it simpler to hire and to adapt to new circumstances, good or bad. When the Lockdown happened I was able to get up to speed on my own pretty quickly and relatively easily. It’s also meant that running the company has had minimal impact on my time. To my mind, if I work half the week, my salary is effectively double what I’m paid.

    Using industry leading software systems like Sage, Adobe Creative Suite, Microsoft, Shopify and Magento has also helped when hiring, training and outsourcing as they are commonly used and known. Online banking, digital credit control and cash flow forecasting keep our finances simple to manage. Keeping our drawings consistent and relatively low enabled us stay cash positive so we could seize opportunities like BambooCup and Bioloco as well as survive the pandemic.

    Highlights

    Thanks to Blue Eyed Sun, I have met many amazing people and been to interesting places like 10 Downing Street and Buckingham Palace. We’ve been interviewed in magazines and newspapers, on TV, radio, podcasts and YouTube channels. I’ve been paid to speak at business events like Sage Summit in America. We’ve also had the privilege of being stocked in many of the world’s leading retailers including Harrods, Fortum & Mason and Selfridges. Recently we even created a bespoke BambooCup for Balmoral, so we’ve been fortunate enough to supply the Queen, meet her and win one of her prestigious awards. Sometimes I have to pinch myself to believe its all real.

    I don’t know what the future holds. Blue Eyed Sun is certainly a decent enough brand with a strong enough base to expand from (despite market challenges) and our new products are selling really well. All of our card production team are now back working their usual hours this month and are busy. Fortunately, we remain profitable, we have great distribution and there’s a lot more potential to explore with our B2C sales and marketing in the run up to Christmas. After that, perhaps some day someone will make us an offer we can’t refuse.

    For now, I’m simply feeling very grateful to everyone who has supported us over the last twenty years, customers, suppliers, agents, trade mags, our team, friends and family. Thank You All! 

    The Secret to Successful Marketing

    Seven Habits of Highly Effective Retailers

    How to win at Cards

  • Hear the story of Blue Eyed Sun on the Lets Talk Shop Podcast

    Therese Ørtenblad - Lets talk shop podcast

    I recently had the pleasure of being interviewed by Therese Ørtenblad on Let's Talk Shop, her fantastic podcast for small businesses who want to grow their wholesale sales with retailers.

    Having worked for giftware company NPW, Therese has extensive experience selling to retailers and has some awesome guests on her podcast which is well worth listening to. She's also an expert that's available for consulting and has online courses for entrepreneurs looking to grow.

    The time breezed by and we had covered a lot of ground as I shared how Blue Eyed Sun got started, many of the pitfalls and failures we've experienced along the road to success and how retail is changing in 2020.

    I've listed some of the highlights below, if you are short on time. Click the play button on the image below.

    02:55 How Blue Eyed Sun got started

    05:25 Our first ever retailer

    07:20 The secret value of trade shows

    09:45 What made the business really take off

    13:15 Taking on our first premises

    13:55 Our first big multiple and how we almost lost them

    17:45 How trade shows have changed

    21:10 What really drives our business success

    22:35 How diversification has doubled our sales

    22:40 The Ladder Club for new card publishers

    24:20 What can cripple your business

    25:30 What we learned from our failures

    26:30 The growth in eco friendly giftware

    27:30 Founding greenmagpie.net to sell B2C

    29:10 How we market to retailers and B2B businesses

    32:00 Our successful blog for Retailers

    33:00 The power of a good email list

    34:15 How retailers can sell well online

    36:00 The secret to social selling

    39:45 The impact of Covid-19 on our business

    46:30 The pitfall of brokerage and multiples

    51:00 How we grew the business on two and a half days per week

    56:40 The future of retail and supply chain logistics

    57:50 How retail will be in Autumn 2020

    62:00 Which retailers have been most affected by Covid-19

    63:25 Which retailers will do well and what they should be stocking

    65:00 Fun marketing tips for businesses

    67:15 Diversity in the card and gift industry

    73:00 How to make real change in the workplace

    83:00 How the world’s consciousness is shifting

    Hope you enjoy listening and thanks to Therese for having me on her show.

    Listen to Jeremy on other podcasts below:

    The Marketing Disenchanted Podcast

    Sage Advice Podcast talking about Business and the Environment

  • How Business is being affected by the New Normal

    The New Normal

    Despite the New Normal, “Greeting card sales are keeping us going” is the feedback I’ve recently been getting from retailers and it’s certainly true for Blue Eyed Sun of late. All things considered, our card sales have continued to be in line with forecasts and more stores have been ordering since they reopened their doors in July. Our international business and white label production has also been picking up.

    Cautious Steps

    Whilst it is still early days, like many fellow business owners, I have been cautious about bringing back members of the team until we are busy enough to have sufficient work for them. Our order book has picked up with several larger orders due to be delivered in the next three months and more of our team are returning part -time this month. The tricky part is trying to predict who will all be needed or not. It’s a delicate balance between keeping the company profitable and preparing for what may come, whilst taking into account seasonal fluctuations.

    Matters are further complicated by one of our team retiring in October and another taking Maternity leave later in the year. With the furlough scheme ending soon decisions will have to be made by businesses across the country regarding redundancies. I’m not sure that the Chancellor’s Job Retention Bonus will be enough for many to keep staff on. If sales have reduced for a business and team members are not required, then £1,000 is not really going to alter the reality of what needs to be done.

    Unless something drastically changes (and let’s face it, anything could this year), as the Job Retention Scheme ends, the UK can expect to see a wave of redundancies start soon and peak in the run up to Christmas. Regardless of the size of this wave, this will very likely affect most of our industry's Christmas sales. I think many of us are aware of this and lots of retailers have been holding back on their ordering as a result. I also suspect there will be more last minute ordering and an increase in ordering little and often as we close in on the key shopping season of the year. 

    The shifts in consumer behaviour for High Street retailers cannot be ignored. Online ordering has clearly accelerated. The courier companies are a good indicator of this. Hermes, for example, are creating 10,000 new jobs. Supermarkets have also done well on cards sales during Lockdown as consumers had limited options for places to buy cards. There was a correction on multiple sales when independents reopened, so there is a still a lot of love out there for smaller retailers in their communities. The question is how can small businesses best adapt to the new normal?

    Adapting

    I’ve been speaking about the Digital High Street at events like Spring Fair for a number of years now, encouraging retailers to get online and to use tools like social media and email lists to boost their sales. One of the good things about the pandemic is that it forces us to make changes that we may have previously put off.

    Retailers who haven’t adapted yet, still have a short window to get themselves digitally sorted for the all important Christmas shopping season. A good way to get started is to build your email list and social media following at your tills so that you can keep in contact with your customers and encourage them to engage with you both online and offline. I’d also choose simple, low-cost software like Shopify to create an online store that serves your customers’ needs.

    To be fair, several of our retailers have been doing this and we regularly get requests for images and product data to help them get started. Selling online feels like a lot of work and in many ways it is. Running an e-commerce website is like setting up another business. The key difference is it can be accessed 24/7 and is not limited to one geographic location. 

    We get orders from all over the world each week on our consumer website at GreenMagpie.net. The downside is, nobody knows you are online until you start driving traffic to your site. I have written whole blog posts and articles about this and I always recommend starting with your core customer base. You know who they are and can enrol them in spreading the word about your venture online.

    The pandemic is forcing many of us to adapt. Blue Eyed Sun is now emailing statements instead of posting them and it’s been just as effective. We’ve also produced our last two brochures in PDF format only instead of printing them. Whilst this has been driven primarily by cost savings, we’ve found that it has enabled us to try new things. For example, our Summer 2020 Everyday Card Brochure now also has a large section organised by occasion. This mirrors our website and allows customers to choose from 24 different Baby Boy cards, for example. A printed brochure like this would be prohibitively expensive so we used to only categorise cards by range. There’s no extra cost to add a few pages digitally though, so now we can do both. 

    My next project will be to automate my bank reconciliations with my Sage accounting software. I’ll also need to figure out how to sell more to retailers online to replace the new business we usually acquire at trade shows, which will inevitably have a 12-18 month hiatus. After exhibiting at over 100 trade shows we have built a sizeable email list of buyers to keep in touch with.

    All of these adaptations have saved money, time and resource. They also enable us to do new things, like share our products with a wider audience. We can get our brochure out to even more people than before and they can share copies more readily with others. I’ve previously been really wary of doing this, because the card industry can assimilate artwork quickly, but this open way of selling is part of the new mode of working. It will no doubt take us to places we have not been before with our previously closed and protective approach of qualifying all prospects first.

    The new safety regime is another big change that we are all having to adapt to.

    Covering Up

    The government recently introduced mandatory face coverings in UK stores. According to our Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, the Covid-19 related death rate of sales and retail assistants is 75% higher amongst men and 60% higher amongst women than in the general population. Retailers have gone to great lengths to reopen the stores in as safely as possible. How keen consumers will be to visit them clad in personal protective gear remains to be seen.

    Personally, I am not excited about this aspect of the ‘new normal.’ On a recent visit to my hairdresser, I disliked having my temperature checked and my address details taken down. Nor did I enjoy being clad in plastic and a face mask as I sat between two vertical sheets of plastic. My hairdresser was similarly donned in plastic and wore a visor.

    Aside from the huge amount of plastic waste (which is already causing more environmental issues) I miss the little things about the human interaction we usually have. The smiles, the laughter and the relaxed nature of hair cutting were all stilted by the PPE. It’s just not relaxing attire. It reeks of fear. I’ve decided to wear my hair long this year to minimise these unpleasant experience.

    To my mind, the masks are likely to perpetuate this feeling. On the other hand, their use will reassure other shoppers when out and about. More importantly, they may limit the spread of Covid-19. Time will tell I guess.

    Changing Times

    With no more shows scheduled for this year and a load of stock to shift before Christmas, many of us will have similar challenges adapting to the new normal. We’ll also all have to have more hand sanitiser, social distancing and even PPE in our businesses. Even the layout of our workplaces will change.

    On the plus side, we will discover new ways of working. New systems that are safer, more efficient and cost less. It’s the nature of this time for us to adapt. New businesses and opportunities will emerge and the new normal will create a new wave of creativity, compassion and ingenuity for us to look forward to.

    Hear Jeremy talk more about the new normal on this podcast

    How change is the only constant to rely on

    Marketing: Then vs Now

  • This too shall pass - How change is the only constant to rely on

    Change is the only constant

    It’s a funny old world isn’t? One minute we are all sailing along doing our thing, the next the proverbial rug is completely pulled out from under our feet and life is never the same again. It seems that the only constant we can rely on is change itself. 

    In April, I emailed all Blue Eyed Sun’s retailers tips for selling online and a list of useful things business owners could do during the Lockdown. It didn’t feel right to be selling to our customers and I wanted to do what little I could to support them. At the end I signed off with a reminder that “this too shall pass.” 

    I’d heard the phrase in a movie and always thought it was something helpful to say when times are tough. It’s a useful reminder that nothing lasts forever. In other words, don’t stress or panic if something troubles you, because it’s not here to stay.

    It’s not just difficult times that pass though, good times pass too. In fact everything is transient and nothing can be relied on with absolute certainty other than the fact that we are born and die (some challenge even these concepts with their perceptions of existence).

    Good Enough Times

    Feedback from many retailers at Spring Fair was that Christmas had not been too bad and a sense of measured confidence was returning to buyers. It was less a case of ‘good times’ and more a case of ‘good enough times’. 

    We were aware of a ‘flu-like’ virus in China and Italy in January. The first recorded UK cases from York were four days before Spring Fair with a third in Brighton as the show closed. Nobody was worrying too much about it and many publishers and suppliers were reporting decent January and Spring Fair orders and leads. A few weeks later the UK was in Lockdown and the economy was in free fall with the wholesale and retail sector contracting by 87.3% in April. Almost two decades of UK economic growth were wiped out overnight.

    The British government’s support has been well received by businesses and we were grateful for the option of furloughing our team using the Job Retention Scheme (JRS). After fifteen years of working two and a half day weeks I was suddenly grafting up to seventy hours per week to cover all the bases and keep the company shipping to customers who still needed us. 

    Not so bad times

    At Blue Eyed Sun we turned the taps off on all but essential supplies in order to save costs. We then watched in horror as independent card sales nose dived by 90%. The crash on giftware was even more noticeable as only a few customers with internet offerings were able to sell our reusable products. 

    Our greeting card sales continued to hold up at a certain level throughout Lockdown and I’ve never felt more grateful to have an established core of best selling cards that people still love to buy. Our online retailers were smashing it out of the park and one of our designs in particular was repeatedly being ordered in the hundreds.

    Despite brokers shutting down for a few weeks, they were quickly back up and running and having diversified card distribution in supermarkets really helped us survive April and May, along with some white label business we have internationally. Things were undoubtedly bad during this time, but they weren’t terrible. We could find ways to survive by using what we had and focusing on what was working.

    The main issue is cashflow. When you have a huge amount of stock and it’s not flowing, but you still have bills to pay it can drive you crazy. Whilst I’m not suggesting one be flippant about these things, worrying about them isn’t necessarily helpful. A certain sense of detachment is more powerful than being caught up in negative thinking and anxiety.

    The present

    I found that it’s better to stay present with what is and not add anything to it. Sales dropped by 90%, most customers were not buying nor able to buy. Some were. Most customers were paying, some weren’t. Our income was covering outgoings to keep our suppliers paid. We had options for deferring Tax and VAT, the Job Retention Scheme and a Bounce Back Loan. These are the facts of what happened and actions we could take. “It’s a nightmare, it’s stressful, I can’t cope,” are what we can often add to what is. They are stories that distort the truth of our experience.

    The present moment is actually as safe as any. If you stop right now and take a deep slow breath in and a long steady breath out and sit with what is for you right now, you will see that everything is actually OK. It’s our fears and anxiety about what is to come that tend to undo us. We load them onto the facts and weigh ourselves down with the worry they induce.

    Looking Back from Perfect

    In 2004 I did an exercise called ‘Looking Back from Perfect’ that changed my life. It’s what helped us to grow and run Blue Eyed Sun on two and half days per week for so long. I’ve used it many times to achieve my goals.

    Jakki Brown and I were chatting about the exercise during Lockdown and she pointed out that things don’t always end up ‘perfect’. She’s absolutely right, bad weather can destroy or hamper your livelihood and it’s not something we can control. The coronavirus and its impact on our businesses is far from ‘perfect.’’ Covid-19 meant I found myself working 70 hour weeks to survive, which is not the goal I set for myself all those years ago.

    We can’t predict everything that happens to us and why would we ever want to? It’s part of the rich tapestry of life that our experiences are varied and ephemeral. Despite doing this exercise, did my life work out perfectly? Hell no. There have been ups and downs, triumphs and disasters, massive mistakes and fortuitous wins.

    Still, we can keep aiming for where we want to get to and adapt to our environment as we go. We can change our ambitions and create new possibilities. We can create reasonable projections and track what works and what doesn’t. So far, so good with the cashflow forecasts I put in place in March. All sales have fallen in line with or exceeded expectations. We’re still hugely reliant on our customers paying their bills, which for the most part, I  am very grateful to say they are.

    The New Normal

    I’ve learned a lot about our business during Lockdown as I went back to doing most jobs I did when we started up. Many new ones I had to learn on the fly. Fortunately my team had created helpful ‘how to’ manuals that got me through it. I managed ten weeks on my own and then brought back our first staff member at the start of June with more to follow as business picks up. Improvements are being made from the things I learned in the warehouse, doing our book keeping and processing our orders.

    Blue Eyed Sun continued to provide a reasonable service to the majority of our customers throughout the pandemic with the main issue being the courier companies struggling with service levels. Parcel volumes have reportedly been like ‘Black Friday’ every day. With the rest of the shops now re-opened and increasing courier capacity this will rectify itself soon enough.

     Things have definitely shifted and last month saw order volumes quadruple at Blue Eyed Sun on the previous month. My counterparts in Germany, Spain and Switzerland have seen strong bounce backs in their retail markets and I think we can expect to see continued lift in the UK too.

    Our expectations shouldn’t be fully relied on though, the ride will inevitably be bumpy from time to time. We have to deal with things as we find them and not as we hope they might be. Stay lean, stay adaptable and look for the opportunities as you go. Remember that, whether it’s good or bad, this too shall pass.

    How retailers can re-open safely after Lockdown

    What retailers can do during a Pandemic

    What was hot at Spring Fair 2020

  • How retailers can safely re-open after Lockdown

    How Retailers Can Safely Reopen after the coronavirus Lockdown

    Now that the we are meeting the five tests the government set in order for Covid-19 Lockdown restrictions to be eased, retailers in England are set to re-open from Monday 15th June. Ireland and Northern Ireland are already open and Scotland and Wales are expected to open soon. Retailers must follow key safety guidelines or they could face enforcement notices.

    For now, the 2m social distancing rules remain in place.

    What to do

    All retailers that open must complete a coronavirus risk assessment and businesses must follow the government's social distancing and hygiene guidelines.

    The steps include increasing the frequency of hand washing and surface cleaning. Keep people 2m apart wherever possible. If this isn't possible, consider whether that particular activity needs to continue. Perspex barriers, avoiding face to face working and reducing the number of people each team member has contact with are all things to consider. Pay attention to regularly used touch-points like door handles, and clean them often. Be mindful to team members who are especially vulnerable to COVID-19.

    Your Team

    It's important that cleaning rotas, hygiene and hand washing become regular features in store both to protect the spread of the virus and to provide reassurance to customers and staff. Make sure these are constantly visible.

    Share your risk assessment with your employees. All businesses with over 50 employees are expected to publish their RA on their website. Stagger arrival and departure times as well as lunch breaks for your employees. Limit non-essential trips and movement and encourage working from home where possible. Work in fixed teams or partnering to limit exposure and encourage working from home where possible.

    Your Customers

    One of the key challenges for retailers will be providing reassurance to their customers that they are safe to visit shops. Having a visible protocol will help with this. Be sure to share it on social media to encourage customers at home to venture out and visit you. Introduce a one-way system in your store for customers to avoid face to face contact with others.

    Mark up the floor area around the till and in store with lines of tape 2m apart to remind people of the social distancing measures. Consider switching to contactless and card payments only to reduce exposure to cash that may carry the virus. Be sure to clean the key pads on your machines regularly.

    Define the number of customers that can reasonably follow social distancing within your store and limit the numbers who enter by setting up a queuing system outside. Products that are extensively handled by customers should be stored for up to 72 hours in a separate room or cleaned. Same goes for all deliveries.

    Shop Local

    We expect to see a wave of support for local and independent retailers in the coming months as people choose to #ShopLocal in order to support those smaller businesses in their communities. You can get involved with the hashtag campaign on social media.

    See what Retailers can do during a Pandemic

    Learn how you can be a more sustainable retailer

    Take on the Plastic Free July Challenge

    Read the Government Guidelines for Retailers

  • What Retailers Can Do In a Pandemic

    What Retailers Can Do In A Pandemic

    As the Covid-19 pandemic has spread across the planet, many governments worldwide have responded with Lockdowns to save lives. As you know, in the UK we have to stay at home and are only able to go out for food, health reasons and work that we can't do from home. Non-food retailers have had to close their doors and we are all wondering how long this will last.

    Where are we? 

    With so much uncertainty, it can feel like an extremely anxious time. It's easy to get caught up in our thoughts and feelings about the virus, which can get in the way of dealing with what is actually happening and what we can do about it.

    The first thing to acknowledge is that we are in the middle of a pandemic and, for now, we are not able to open our shop doors unless we sell essential items or food that can be taken away. This can mean that our usual revenue streams have disappeared or drastically reduced. Whilst it seems like business can't carry on, the fact is that people are still spending money online. Shopify and Amazon have both reported sales growth and postal and companies are busier than ever. Alibaba boomed on the back of the SARS outbreak. Retail is still happening, just not in the way we are used to.

    So, what can we do?

    People are still having birthdays and celebrations and many are still buying and sending gifts to friends and loved ones. If you don't currently sell online, now is the time to start looking into it. I've pulled together some useful blog posts to inspire our retailers:

    This post on how retailers can get started selling online interviews two retailers who managed to do this in a low cost way that doesn't involve expensive websites. Another on Ecommerce Tips for Retailers shows you how other retailers have reached their markets online. For background reading you may also like to read Opportunities and Obstacles for the Digital High Street.

    You can learn how retailers can get started on Instagram and adapt to social selling online. I've written loads for retailers who are looking for social media tips to boost their sales, so do take a look at that link. If you are thinking about creating a website, I recommend Shopify as a fast and easy way to get started. As an example, take a look at our B2C website, Green Magpie, that we built ourselves within a couple of weeks and is relatively low cost to run.

    If you are open for business it's really important to communicate with your customers that you are open and that your shop is a safe to visit. For example, I like the way this Darts Farm Instagram Post created to reassure their customers.

    As well as changing how you sell, some businesses are pivoting what they sell. Check out this story about German baker Tim Korteun, who started making toilet roll cakes when panic buying led to loo roll shortages. The humour and fun of it led to sales growing from 8 to 200 cakes a day. It also made a great story that has gone viral on the internet boosting their PR.

    It's important to stay connected to your community during the pandemic. I love seeing the different retailers that have filled their windows with rainbows to share their support of the brave British care workers in the NHS who are risking their lives to save ours. You can download NHS friendly posters from BrainboxCandy. Plus, you can join people across the UK as they applaud hospital workers from their front doors every Thursday at 8pm.

    Remember not to leave your business premises unattended for more than 30 days as this can invalidate some insurance claims. Whilst you are in store, it can be a good opportunity to change your shop displays around in preparation for returning customers. One of our retailers found that reorganising their shop floor led to double digit growth in sales.

    If it's been a while, remember to take a look at your sales figures. What products usually sell fastest? Which lines make you the most profit? What's not working and tying up vital cash? From there you can organise how you lay things out to boot sales of profitable and fast moving items. Plus you can allocate poor sellers for sales offers and give aways for loyal customers.

    As our whole team have been furloughed, I've been checking into Blue Eyed Sun's premises every day to stay on top of orders, book keeping, marketing prep and sorting and tidying. It's been very useful to see my business from different perspectives. Jobs that I hadn't done for long time, still have room for improvement. Perhaps you'll find things in your business that you hadn't noticed before too. I've also been touched by the number of retailers who have been calling in to pay their bills and share their stories with me.

    Cut Business Spending

    When there's no money coming in, cutting overhead costs is essential. Review all of your utility suppliers and see if you can switch providers. For example, you can get cheaper and greener energy plus £50 cash-back with my Bulb referral link here.

    Government support during the Covid-19 pandemic has been extensive. If you haven't already done so, you can furlough your team using the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme from the government to ensure they receive 80% of their current salary. They must not work during this time, but you are able to speak to them.

    The government is also allowing delays in paying VAT bills until March 2021. You can also delay your July Self Assessment Tax payment too. Retailers affected by Covid-19 can get Business Rates Relief. The self-employed also have measures in place to help with lost profits. Plus Coronavirus Business Interruption Loans are available. If things are really bad for you or your employees people can get grants from charities like Turn2Us.

    It's worth taking a mortgage repayment holiday on your property for up to three months to help with cash flow. All major banks are offering these and can be as simple as filling in an online form.

    After the Virus

    It's still not clear what the exit strategy is for the pandemic, but it's safe to assume that we are going to live in a low-touch economy for a time going forward. One that is driven by new habits and regulations that we will all need to reassure our staff and customers that our business environments are clean, healthy and safe.

    Events and large gatherings will be highly impacted. E-commerce, home deliveries and remote working will continue to grow. Travel may get more difficult and more people may 'staycation' for a while which might also affect who visits your store and what they want to buy. Unemployment and mental health challenges will almost certainly increase.

    As people feel more isolated, pets  and pet products will grow in popularity. If you rely on office trade in your shop, we may see more office workers continue to work for home. It's worth considering marketing tie ins with the companies they work for in order to maintain contact with these valuable consumers.

    With more unemployment we will see a boom in small businesses starting up that require all manner of products and services. With increased Zoom calls and less face-to-face time, what people wear and how they wear it may also shift. Accessories and products that appear in these calls could do really well.

    It's important to start from the situation as it is. Not worse, nor better. Then decide how to act powerfully from there to protect your business and offer it the best potential for survival and growth. I hope this post as give you some for food for thought about how you might be able to do that during the pandemic. If you found it useful, please feel free to share it.

    The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Retailers

    The current UK government Coronavirus guidelines

    How to get more customers to your retail business

    16 Retail lessons I learned from Liberty of London

  • How can you be a Sustainable Retailer?

    How Can You Be A Sustainable Retailer

    How can one be a sustainable retailer? I mean, really. Retailers trade in ‘stuff’. Stuff, which takes more stuff to be manufactured (up to 70 times more, according to StoryofStuff.org). It’s also mostly stuff that’s shipped halfway round the world burning carbon producing fossil fuels that pollute our planet and produce CO2. 

    Increased CO2 levels are leading to rising temperatures, melting polar ice caps and higher sea levels. Global warming could potentially cause massive population displacement as resources like drinking water dry up.

    The stuff we sell also tends to be covered in plastic throughout the supply chain. Plastics take a very long time to break down and much of it ends up polluting the environment. With our increasingly polluted environment and global warming, retailers and suppliers alike are keen to manage the balance between meeting all of our desires to live more sustainably and the need to remain profitable. The question is how?

    Where to Start

    How can we be a more sustainable retailer? What are the actions we can all take? According to one climate change study, there are five key things we do that have the highest impact on reducing CO2 levels. Regardless of our place in the supply chain to consumers, each of these five actions could reduce at least 0.8 tonnes of CO2 from our personal output per annum:

    1. Have Less Kids 

    The biggest single action (by far) that the world’s population can take going forward to reduce global warming is to have less children. If you look at future emissions of descendants based on historical rates, having one fewer child saves around 60 tonnes of CO2 per annum. Each human being that is added to our planet (particularly in developed nations like the UK) has a massive impact on CO2 levels. 

    2. Drive Less 

    Transport is responsible for nearly 30% of the EU’s total CO2 emissions, of which 72% comes from road transportation. A lot of this is in our supply chain of lorries moving our stuff around. It’s also in the cars we drive and the public transport we use.

    The ideal scenario is to ditch your car altogether and use public transport. This isn’t always practical for us though. Another alternative is to car share. Using more environmentally friendly electric vehicles will also help to slash your C02 output.

    Cutting CO2 from our supply chains is trickier. Ideally orders should be consolidated to have less deliveries (and therefore less miles used). With electric trucks currently already available, we will need to encourage our carriers to start switching to these or hybrids. 

    Something more consumers are now considering is whether they really need the ‘stuff’ they are buying or not. This could be the reason for the rise in food gifting and certain fashion items remaining strong for certain retailers. We all need to eat and be clothed. Make sure you have products in your offering that people can’t do without.

    3. Fly Less 

    A transatlantic round-trip flight can release 1.6 tonnes of CO2 per person. This is as much as the average yearly emissions for one person in India. Most of us that fly are polluting the planet for the rest of the global population. It’s estimated that more than 90% of the global population have never flown before. With global CO2 emissions growing at about 317 megatons per year, many of these people will be displaced by rising temperatures and reduced access to water and resources. 

    The amount of CO2 released is up to nine times higher if you fly first class (because of the extra space in the premium section of the plane). Even local flights to and from Europe can add up to half of ton of CO2 per passenger.

    Carbon off-sets should be made mandatory on all plane ticket purchases to help plant tress and support projects that reduce CO2 to offset flight pollution. Make sure your products are shipped by boat or produced locally to reduce the CO2 produced from your supply chains. Buy local seasonal fruit and veg to reduce air miles in your daily diet.

    4. Buy Clean Energy

    Switching to green energy supplier, Bulb, saved me three tonnes of CO2 last year and reduced my energy carbon footprint by 25%. You can save up to £247 off your bill and get up to £50 credit if you sign up using my referral link here. Bulb is the UK’s biggest green supplier, other specialists are available.  

    5. Eat Less Meat

    Beef production requires 20 times more land (and water) and emits 20 times more green house gas emissions per unit of edible protein than common plant-based protein sources like beans, peas and lentils. If cattle were their own nation, they would be the world’s third largest emitter of greenhouse gases, after China and the USA. The methane that cows produce is 30 times more potent than CO2 as a heat-trapping gas. 

    With developing nations eating more meat, the world needs to cut back on meat consumption. It’s just not sustainable. You don’t have to become vegan or vegetarian to make a difference. You can halve your environmental impact by eating less meat and dairy. Food retailers can help by reducing the meat and dairy products they sell as well as introducing plant based alternatives. 

    Climate Change for Sustainable Retailers Data from Wynes, Seth, and Kimberly A Nicholas. 2017. “The Climate Mitigation Gap: Education and Government Recommendations Miss the Most Effective Individual Actions.” Environmental Research Letters 12(7). DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/aa7541. Image credit: Catrin Jakobsson.

    What else can you do?

    These five actions have the biggest impact. There are also loads of smaller changes you can make. These include recycling, washing clothes in cold water instead of hot water, hang drying clothes instead of tumble drying and upgrading your lightbulbs to energy efficient LEDs instead of tungsten bulbs. Many of these smaller changes can easily be actioned in the workplace.

    What about plastics?

    Over six percent of UK consumers prefer to buy from retailers that are reducing their use of single-use plastics. They also want greater transparency in how companies source their materials.

    In 1950, the world’s population of 2.5 billion produced 1.5 million tons of plastic. In 2016, a global population of more than 7 billion people produced over 320 million tons of plastic. This is set to double by 2034.

    In 2015 an estimated 55% of global plastic waste was discarded, 25% was incinerated and 20% was recycled. That discarded waste becomes plastic pollution that causes serious issues with our wildlife. At current rates, 99% of seabirds will carry plastic in their guts by 2050. Plastic is chocking our wildlife to death.

    What can retailers do?

    Be aware of the core sustainability issues and do your best to move in the right direction to create and support change. Communicate these changes to your customers and involve them in your journey.

    Environmental Campaigns like Plastic Free July, Plastic Free Lent and #PlasticFreeFriday are great ways to engage your team, community, suppliers and customers. It’s tricky ditching plastic and you learn loads doing it. 

    Opportunities

    With more people avoiding single-use items, products that help with this are on the rise. Reusable bags, lunchboxes, water bottles and reusable cups are obvious easy wins to carry in store.

    With cards, it’s important that publishers include their FSC credentials on their products. FSC means that the supply chain is monitored to ensure that the paper used on our cards comes from sustainably managed sources.

    It’s also essential that publishers ditch plastic wherever possible. Almost 70% of greeting cards sold in the UK are now plastic free after changes were made by multiples. PLA compostable alternatives are a good interim measure for independents, but long term, consumers will want to see PLA reduce too.

    Sustainable Focus

    The key to becoming a sustainable retailer is to make your own changes personally first. Then, from there, build environmental awareness and sustainability into your business so that it’s more than just lip service. It makes it much easier to talk to others about changes that you have made yourself. It’s also more inspiring and it has a more powerful effect.

    The other important thing to do is to communicate these changes to your customers and community, so they can hear and see how you are taking steps in the right direction. It’s not about being perfect. It’s about taking action and sharing it.

     

    See the slides from my talk on How to be a Sustainable Retailer at Spring Fair at the NEC:

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