Gift Focus inc Attire Accessories - September/October 2020

BUSINESS 143 how to use Shopify and created the website you see today. We chose Shopify as it integrates seamlessly with Instagram, enabling us to simply tag our products on posts and sell them direct to customers through Instagram. Sales are continuing to rise and we have had to put many new processes in place for logistics and stock management. Interestingly, 10 percent of the orders are from customers who live near one of the shops. People’s shopping habits are changing and many like to shop at night from the comfort of home. People are also very busy and many cannot make it to the shop during opening hours. With a transactional website we now able to serve these customers we would have otherwise missed. Having a transactional website has not only given us a new income stream but has also helped our business to look more professional. We have been approached by many new suppliers who can now see our product range and would like to be stocked by us. Similarly, we are approached constantly by retail agents trying to sell us shops. The website has enabled them to see our offering and gives them confidence in us as a potential client. We anticipate high growth online and we are committing more resources to it in 2021. Do you undertake any charitable initiatives? If so, what? Supporting local communities is extremely important to Lark. We joined the local BID scheme in Streatham, a community scheme designed to help businesses by helping to improve the areas. We meet regularly to discuss local issues and network. The local BID managers have been extremely supportive of Lark and have helped us get to know people in the area. Soon, Tooting BID will be launching, and we are looking forward to being a part of it. As many of our customers have children in the local schools we decided to support the schools in their fundraising. We make sure that we donate a prize to every local school for their summer and winter Fetes. We are often featured in the school’s brochure as a sponsor, which helps keep our visibility in the local area and to develop a relationship with local parent and mum groups. This has worked extremely well in generating local community support for the shops and has brought in many new customers through word of mouth. Similarly, we have many regular customers who occasionally raise money for charity via Quiz nights for running marathons etc. They often ask us for prizes, and we are happy to oblige with small prizes as it generates a lot of goodwill and return custom. Supporting local events is very important to us and last year we pledged to attend as many local events as possible to get ourselves back involved with the community, and share event details to our Instagram page, which has nearly 6000 followers. In 2019 we personally attended regular craft weekends in a pub called Balham Bowls Club where local artists show their work. In the summer we enjoyed the Streatham kite festival and the Streatham food festival, meeting many lovely local people and fellow business owners along the way. It’s unusual for a retailer to be involved in such things and really helped to spread the word about Lark.  It has been a great challenge to create individual local integration in every different area Lark has opened but it is a very important part of our concept and we will always strive to maintain our reputation as a shop of the community and for the community. We are very proud of what we have achieved so far and will continue with this drive in 2021.  Do you attend any trade shows and if so, which ones and why? We attend Pure London and Top Drawer as they are local to us and provide a great on trend experience. We also attend Autumn and Spring Fair in the NEC as the product selection is fantastic. Are you looking to open more stores across the UK? This all depends on the economic climate after COVID-19. The pandemic is significantly affecting our store. We have had to put in place all the government measures to ensure staff and customer safety. This includes quarantining clothing for 72 hours after a customer trying it on and reducing the amount of people in the store at one time. Both these aspects will affect store takings, however, we are happy to comply due to staff and customer safety being the priority. How do you view the retail market at present, and what advice would you give other retailers? The retail market is bleak at the moment but not impossible. We are still running a profitable business, which we feel is remarkable during this economic climate. Our philosophy is on complete survival and working extremely hard to ensure Lark’s future. The advice I would give to other retailers is not to give up, you will just have to work harder then ever before to be competitive, engaging and trend leading. What are your plans for the future? In response to UK trends and for the greater good we would love to increase our buying budget significantly in 2021 for ethical giftware. We are very anti-plastic at Lark. We have been lobbying card manufacturers to supply cards without cellophane wrap, and have increased our buying of cards that do not use cellophane such as Oh Deer and Betti Confetti. Customers think it’s a great idea, far less wasteful and sales of these cards have increased significantly over the past year. LARK LONDON www.larklondon.com @lark_london

RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTA0NTE=