What a month...What..a...month!
As some of you may know, we are currently closed, and we have been since March, it's been over a month now and it's the longest we've EVER been closed since opening! (Our COVID-19 page is here which has up to date info about what we are doing)
It's an odd feeling, not knowing when we're going to re-open fully and when life is going to return back to normal. We can't wait to open our shop again and see our customers face to face!
But I wanted to share with you all a few things we've been working at behind the scenes!
If you own a small business and have currently closed this may just give you a few ideas on what you can do whilst we all stay at home and stay safe! (Which we really hope you are doing of course!)
- Giving the website a refresh!
I've been playing around a little bit with the websites layout recently, looking at it as a customer and trying to figure out what works and what doesn't!
We have so many products it can be a little bit daunting for both me and the customer so creating categories helps! I've recently updated our wedding section so you can search by subsection using visuals rather than using our main menu bar at the top! I have a long list of other categories that I'd like to do this too so I'm going to be starting to work my way through them very soon!
There's other areas such as the 'about us' section and the FAQ section that I should probably update too! Adding a few photos and just making it more enjoyable to read!
- Starting a blog!
Oh hey! (crosses off to-do list!)
You may have noticed I published two previous posts and then...nothing! Well it's been one of those things that I've just kind of left to be honest.
But if now is not the perfect time to make a proper start on this I don't know when is! So on the last Friday of every month I'll be posting a monthly roundup, all about what's been happening that month and any news.
Once a month ( at least ) I will be doing a top five/ten post, so it might be our top 5 totes for book nerds or our top ten workout T'S, I love reading these things from buzzfeed so why not join in the fun?!
As well as this I'm HOPING to do a few bonus blogs, I used to do a small business Friday post every Friday over on our Instagram so it would be nice to bring this back in some way over on here with a roundup of my fave small shops!
- Getting social!
This gets overlooked way too often! When the shop is busy or I'm in the flow of putting new designs up, it's all to easy to forget to actually market our li'l shop!
Instagram stories is a bit of a godsend, I love how unedited it is and how easy it is to interact with people. In fact I hardly ever scroll on my instagram account but I ALWAYS look through the stories! Not only do I prefer the unedited versions I get a better sense of peoples personalities!
Saying that I do need to try and keep our accounts updated somewhat! Whilst we're closed I can get posts scheduled ready for our return! So this is on my list of things to do! I've also started making templates for people to use over on our Instagram so if you love filling those out go and check it out!
- New designs!
I'm still getting new designs uploaded onto our website daily, as well as getting them ready to be uploaded onto Ebay, Amazon and Etsy!
- Shop plans!
Having our brick and mortar shop has of course, released a whole new workload on us (fortunately I LOVE doing it and it's one of my favourite things to do!) Window dressing, creating laminates for displays, arranging the products in the shop, I love it all!
Of course we can't do any of that right now, but I'm going to be getting our laminates ready for the seasons ahead and organising what we're going to do with the windows!
- New Products!
A new product launch as you can imagine, takes a lot of work! From planning what we want to stock, to pricing them up, perfecting the prints on them, taking photos, to listing them with our designs on and marketing them on our socials and in-store!
We've recently launched an array of bags, hats and accessories, some of which need adding to our site! We're constantly looking at what else we can do and revising what works well and what doesn't!