I’m sure I’ve said this before, but retail is 90% hard graft and 10% pure guesswork. The graft is straightforward, and largely enjoyable – remind me I said that, when I’m loading the van in a blizzard and the dark somewhere remote, around Christmas – but the guesswork is a total nightmare. Who can foretell what you, our lovely customer, will decide you MUST have in a month’s time? Who can predict the next trend? Who can explain why the little spinning knobbly things in bright colours that last week sold faster than they could be made, are now absolutely unacceptable? Not us, we have discovered, but it’s good to know we’re not alone: so many of our fellow retailers and small business owners that we’ve canvassed feel the same way! The only rule that does seem to apply is that ‘eye high is buy high’ – great in a shop or stall setting, but harder to apply on a website, we’ve found. Customers are a wonderful, fickle lot: without you all we simply wouldn’t exist, and please don’t for one second think that we aren’t grateful to you, each and every one. It’s good for us to be kept on our toes! But please, help us out: tell us what you’d be interested in seeing, and we’ll do some due diligence and come back to you. Sensible ideas only please – last year we genuinely had one fabulous gentleman suggest all in one Edwardian-style bathing suits. True story. For some reason, they don’t seem to have made it onto the website …
