73 RETAILER INTERVIEW out there and we wish we could stock everything but we take our lead from the customer and what they need from us. The customers are at the heart of our business so we’re always asking for their input as we think it’s really important to us and our business. As a crafter and sewist myself, I’ll often see something I want to make and before long all the supplies needed for it appear in our ‘new in stock’ category! Do you visit any trade shows? We do like to visit trade shows. It’s great to meet new suppliers, connect more with current ones and meet new people in the industry and we always come back so inspired. Are you active on social media? How is this useful for the business? We’re very active on social media. We love to engage with the customers and see what they make with our products and we often get tagged in so many beautiful creations. We like to share their makes on our social media as we know how important exposure is to small businesses especially with the algorithms changing so frequently! Having a Customer Group on Facebook too allows us to build a more personal relationship with our customers and interact with them and even offer support and advice on their makes if they are stuck or trying something new. It’s nice for the customer to put a face to the name and feel like they’re having human interaction with us rather than just generic customer service. Do you have any plans for the future of the shop? We’ve just built Studio 3, so our current plans involve rearranging our stock and looking for what we can fill the new space with. It’s all very exciting! Do you have any tips for people looking to start their own retail venture? Absolutely! It’s really important to find something you’re passionate about and that you personally enjoy as it becomes so much more than a business. It becomes your everything and you’ll be spending a lot of time looking at it, doing it, talking about it and dreaming about it so you need to love it. Look for gaps in the market you can fill and work out what your unique selling points are and what will make you stand out from anyone else doing the same thing. Make a record of everything. The highs, the lows and the wins no matter how big or small. It’s great to look back and see how far you’ve come on the days when it feels really hard and you want to give up - which is perfectly normal! How do you handle shipping and packaging? We have a website that seamlessly links to our mail and courier accounts, and this does half of the hard work for us. We try to use environmentally-friendly packing and repurpose boxes and packaging where we can for sustainability. We have daily collections which means our customers are never waiting long for their orders. What has been the biggest challenge in running your online shop? There’s been a few challenges along the way but I think it would be standing out in what is becoming a heavily competitive market. There are so many more online craft shops than when we started back in 2007 and there are new ones appearing regularly but we also believe that there’s room for us all to win and if anything, I think it only inspires us to keep going and find new and exciting products to keep our customers coming back! What’s the one product you couldn’t live without? My trusty rotary cutter! It’s well loved and well used and gets daily workouts cutting all these fabric orders but keeps going strong! Rosie’s Craft Shop www.rosiescraftshop.co.uk
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