COMPANY PROFILE 25 EARTH SQUARED T: +44 (0)1620 892 289 www.earthsquared.com of retail, and what businesses really require from wholesale brands. How are you finding the current climate in the UK? Is it affecting business? Times are certainly tough – the cost of living is affecting everyone and impacting confidence, which means consumers are understandably giving more thought to what they spend their money on. How do you view the future of independent retail post-pandemic? We are lucky to work with independent shops across the whole of the UK – who all work exceptionally hard to serve their customers as best they can. We think the end consumer is thinking more about where they buy things, and why – and that independent shops that can offer great service, a personal experience and who themselves innovate in terms of product offering, will do well. We remain very confident that shoppers still want to use and support independent shops. Are you active on social media? How is this important for the business? In all honesty, social media is something that we need to get better at. Both Simon and I find ourselves lagging behind the curve on this one and our priority has always been to support our retailers (as opposed to ourselves per se). We do appreciate that promotion of the brand can itself support our retailers and have recently invested in more proactive social media activity to promote the brand generally but more specifically our stockists, which is already making a big difference. Do you have any advice for new businesses starting out in the world of gifts? Balance vision with reality. Nurture good ideas, think of the end user and in what way the gift will benefit them – the world doesn’t need more useless ‘stuff’. But don’t be afraid to listen to feedback and adapt if other opportunities become apparent. What can we expect in the future from the company? As well as brand new collections for Spring and Autumn, we have a number of new sustainability initiatives in the pipeline including the use of recycled fabrics (the linings for all of our products as well as some distinct collections). In 2022 we introduced entirely recyclable/compostable packaging for all products which has been really well received but we know we can do more.
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