Gift Focus - Mar/Apr 2020 (Issue 118)

24 made whilst travelling. We’ve made this popular scent available across all product formats to allow the scent to be enjoyed in a fragrance lamp as well as scented candles, reed diffusers, scented sachets and interior sprays in The Scented Home Collection. Have any products/designs taken you by surprise with their popularity? Along the way we’ve had little flurries of very diverse products that have caught us by surprise. Some 20 years ago, our Millennium range of metal candle holders and oil burners, we just couldn’t keep in stock due to their popularity. Similarly, our metal scented pomanders simply flew out so well the first Christmas, that we had to produce six times the quantity for the following season, which also sold out. Currently, our diffusers and fragrance lamps continue to exceed expectations. How do you keep your designs fresh and current? How do you predict trends? What new scent will take the fragrance world by storm in 2020? We’re constantly reviewing trends in fashion, home and of course fragrance. Between the team, we travel to many of the key giftware shows throughout the world and travel itself can provide great inspirations for our designs. For 2020, unusual ingredients such as yuzu, coconut water and green tea bring a refreshing twist to softer feeling scents. We’ve included such notes in our new scents in The Design Anthology and our limited edition Japanese-inspired fragrances. What sets you apart from your competitors? We pride ourselves on our creativity and innovation and have a wide-ranging portfolio of products that demonstrates this. Our fragrance lamps are a one-of- a-kind proposition in the world of home fragrance. Their ability to purify the air as well as fragrance the home, coupled with their unique aesthetic provides something extra compared to other home fragrancing methods. As well as our expertise in scent, we consider ourselves pioneers in home fragrancing techniques too. We led the market with the introduction of our first reed diffuser back at the start the millennium and made the fragrance lamp widely available in the UK market a few years later. How are you finding the current economic climate in the UK? Is it affecting business? Certainly, the effect of the political uncertainty since 2016 has been noticeable, as well as the continuing evolution of internet retail forcing dramatic changes on the high street. All of this helps to drive creativity and innovation with people seeking out new channels and selling formats. Are you active on social media? How is this important for the business? Yes, we’re active on Instagram and Facebook with daily posts and interactions. We’re constantly answering consumer questions immediately. We’ve recently launched ‘repost Wednesday’ which we’ve found to really bolster A&B and retailer relationships on a social channel. It’s a great tool to increase brand awareness and to inspire our followers, driving more business to stores. Do you visit trade shows? What are you hoping to achieve when you exhibit? Yes, we exhibit every year at Spring Fair and Autumn Fair. Plus, we show at Ambiente in Frankfurt and Maison et Objet in Paris. The shows are ideal to showcase our new products for the next season and beyond. It’s an opportunity for new and existing customers to see and importantly to smell our fragrances that there really is no substitute for. Do you have any advice for new businesses starting out in the world of gift or fragrance? Do your research; understand your customers, products and fragrance notes. Passion breeds passion. Sharing your enthusiasm and knowledge about fragrances and products will naturally inspire your customers. We think our new tagline sums this up: Love Fragrance, Live Fragrance. What can we expect in the future from Ashleigh & Burwood? We’re working on some exciting and brand-new product concepts, which aren’t currently on the market, which will enable consumers to add fragrance to their homes and personal spaces in innovative new ways. Watch this space! For further information call +44 (0)1932 267 060 or visit the website ashleigh-burwood.co.uk