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
