Gift Focus inc Attire Accessories - July/August 2020

77 COMPANY PROFILE For more information call +44 (0)7939 555 737 or visit www.jarapa.co.uk manufactured in the UK (lamps). We are a small family business with a personal service and flexible ordering. We like to listen to our customers and work with them where we can. We are not fixed on order quantities allowing anyone to introduce an element of our product range. We also like to live by our ethos of running as low environmental impact a company as we can, such as using recycled packaging materials, and shipping stock from Spain via train wherever possible. How are you finding the current coronavirus climate? What are your thoughts on the future? I am hoping people will look closer to home for products and not rely so much on long distance imports. Supply chains have been seriously disrupted over the last few months from China and India. Our supply chain has had hardly any disruption proving we can overcome many difficulties. I am also hoping people will think more about the environmental impact of their product choices. Are you active on social media? How is this important for the business ? We have a great presence on Instagram thanks to Sarah who posts brilliant comments and images most days. It is really important to be in touch with our shops in this way. We are building our presence on Facebook and LinkedIn too. Do you have any advice for new businesses starting out in the world of greetings and gift? Do your research first, attend trade shows, look at your competitors, find out everything you can about what you want to do. Do not be afraid to ask for what you want and be confident in where you want to go. Talk to people, it is always surprising to me how few people really know their suppliers or customers. What can we expect from the company in the future? Coming out of the current crisis, we will be looking to support our customers in restocking. We have good levels of stock in our UK warehouse and our Spanish suppliers are back at work manufacturing. This year will see the introduction of more beautiful glassware in a variety of colours, and the lamp range will be increased with more shapes. We have a new concept for our shades, colourful and unique – keep an eye on our website to see these soon!