71 RETAILER INTERVIEW Do you visit any trade shows? Yes, we try to head up to London two or three times a year for different trades shows to catch up with suppliers and to see what’s new. Have you seen a boom in the craft industry recently? Scrapbooking and junk journalling is popular at the moment, particularly within the TRAVELER’S notebook community, for which we were honoured to become the first Partner Shop in the UK. Stickers, washi tape and stamps all do well for us and we hold regular scrapbook meet-ups at the shop as part of our programme of workshops and events. Are you active on social media? How is this useful for the business? Yes, mostly Instagram (allthingsanalogue). We dip in and out a little but it’s useful for letting people know what we’re up to and what’s new in the shop. It’s a good way of reaching beyond our immediate surroundings and we’ve connected with some other amazing stationery shops around the world as a result. Do you have any plans for the future of the store? Workshops etc? Six years into our shopkeeping adventure and looking to the future still feels like a matter of survival sometimes. We absolutely love what we do but as an independent shop it sometimes feels like the odds are stacked against you. One thing we do know is that for us, success and happiness doesn’t mean opening a million branches of All Things Analogue. It’s our family run endeavour and we’re a one shop kind of place. We will always be on the lookout for great new stationery and ways of bringing people together and we’d love to expand into some of our other analogue interests too (typewriters, film, vinyl) but ... we’ll need a bigger shop for that. Do you have any tips for people looking to start their own retail venture? Do what you love and something that you believe in. And do it for the right reasons. Start with something manageable and grow at your own pace. What is the one product you couldn’t live without? My TRAVELER’S notebook. It’s my diary, planner, notebook, to-do list, scrapbook and sketchbook all in one! It goes everywhere with me. ALL THINGS ANALOGUE 37 Grove Road Eastbourne, BN21 4TT https://allthingsanalogue.co.uk
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