Gift Focus - Nov/Dec 2018 (Issue 110)

What was the reason for setting up Blue Eyed Sun? Blue Eyed Sun started in 2000. My business partner, Jo, founded the company in Brighton after running a small secondhand clothing shop in York, where she made and sold handmade cards with small pieces of glass enamel on them. Jo always knew she wanted to work for herself and has a great combination of business savvy and an aesthetic sensibility that people warm to. She loves crafts, so Blue Eyed Sun has always had a strong connection with craft-based cards. I joined the business to help market the cards to a broader audience. Can you tell us more about the products? How often do you launch new designs? For the past 18 years, we’ve designed, published and distributed gorgeous handmade greeting cards for design-led shops around the world. All of our cards are handmade in our workshops near Brighton. We launch new ranges several times a year and cover all the key occasions, with more than 700 designs for retailers to choose from. More recently, we ventured into giftware products when we became the exclusive distributor in the UK and Ireland for BambooCup, SlideCup and BambooFriends by chic.mic. These eco-friendly products include reusable coffee cups made from bamboo fibre, as well as lunchboxes, chopping boards and baby tableware. New designs are launched once or twice a year. What values are important to Blue Eyed Sun? Love and connection are key values for Blue Eyed Sun. Contribution and growth are also important to us. We like our products to have significance and value to the world. It’s not all about the money for us; we simply love beautiful products that have heart. Blue Eyed Sun has a great reputation for contribution, love and connection within our industry. We’ve also grown as a team and as a business over the years. For me personally, over the past 15 years, I have been mentoring and helping startups in our industry through talks at the Ladder Club for new card publishers, with the DIT (for those looking to export) and seminars I give on social media and business at Spring and Autumn Fair. I’ve had the privilege of contributing to the Greeting Card Association for a number of years and am currently the chairman of the Giftware Association. I also speak internationally for companies like Sage plc. What have been the key highlights and challenges since launching the business? A major highlight was winning a Queen’s Award for Export and presenting Her Majesty with one of our cards at Buckingham Palace. We’re also fortunate enough to have one of our early cards in the V&A Collection. Other highlights include purchasing our own business premises and building a fantastic team to help us run Blue Eyed Sun. Growth has always been challenging for cashflow. In the early days, we found the business all-consuming. Most of the greatest challenges, though, have been internal – we all tend to be our own worst enemies. Once you see this and work on it, a whole new world of possibility opens up. How are you finding the current economic market in the UK? There’s no escaping the fact that it’s challenging for the majority of businesses in the UK right now. This is what I’m hearing from retailers and fellow suppliers, with uncertainty over Brexit and our political future being the major causes. We have been fortunate to have a product that people want during this time, so we are growing this year despite the difficult market. Blue Eyed Sun MD Jeremy Corner tells Gift Focus how he has helped to grow the handmade greeting card business into what it is today eyes on the prize 50 giftfocus