Gift Focus - May/Jun 2018 (Issue 107)

Kaytie’s passion for the brand and for designing. These are updated with at least two collections a year. What have been the key milestones in the business? A successful launch in the first year with 150 stockists signing up in UK and Ireland, and KW now being sold in 10 House of Fraser flagship stores nationwide and available on its website. How are you finding the current economic climate in the UK? Is it affecting business? The current climate certainly made many of our clients more careful in selecting a brand. KW has been successful in identifying a gap in the market for original designs, quality material and finish, accessible retail price point, strong marketing presence in social media, and support in merchandising presentation. Only by doing that could we overcome the challenging market and so far, many of our clients have been continuously ordering and selling – a sign that shows the formula has worked. Are you active on social media? How is this important for the business? We’re very active across all social media platforms. We understand that most people these days use social media and we want to be able to be informative as well as interesting across all platforms. We have a strong following at the moment and hope to see this grow even further over the upcoming year. Do you visit trade shows? Which ones, and how are these important for the business? Yes, we regularly visit trade shows. This year so far we’ve been at Spring Fair in Birmingham and Pure London. Appearing at these shows is a good way to showcase new products and meet new customers. We’re also able to connect with our existing customers and get to know them on a much more personal level. If you missed us at Spring Fair and Pure, you can also catch us INDX, Harrogate’s Home & Gift, Moda and Autumn Fair. Do you have any tips for new traders? Change the display often to keep customers interested. Invest in social networking and keep your products fresh. I think it’s also important to know your products, be able to answer any questions and tell any relevant stories behind the pieces. Here at KW we offer help to all our customers, old or new, with product knowledge and helpful display stands. We also have fact sheets for when our customers ask for them and a ‘brand bible’ for the KW brand to help set up a display, organise the collections and be ready for sale. What can we expect in the future from Kaytie Wu? To keep producing relevant products for our clients and KW customers, this will play the biggest part in the future. We want to continue to grow both KW and KKW and be able to offer customers a wider range of products. We hope for there to be more accessory items after our recent launch of sunglasses and be able to add pieces that move away from the more core jewellery lines. This year, we’ve been focusing on our packaging and providing our customers a product that can be sold as the ‘perfect gift’. We’ve just launched out new grey gift boxes for KW retailers. These are supplied at 10 a time for every £100 spent, meaning customers are given a choice for gift wrapping. We’re hoping to expand even more into the gift retailer industry and this is the first step in the right direction. For further information, telephone +44 (0)20 3397 5880 or visit the website kaytiewu.com giftfocus 67 company profile