81 RETAILER INTERVIEW started with a small collection and are growing it in response to what our customers want. What brands do you currently stock? Are you looking for any new products or styles? We currently stock Guttermann, DMC, Jolly Good Yarns, Trimits, Cotton Clara, Make Arcade, Origami Est, and many more but we’re always on the lookout for new products and styles. What’s selling particularly well at present? Our craft kits have always been great sellers for us, we’re finding that our embroidery kits are becoming more popular than our cross stitch kits at the moment though. What hobby or new trend are you currently excited about? We love running our Jesmonite workshops and are still a little bit obsessed with blending the perfect colour for our terrazzo pieces but we have also got some amazing new sewing workshops coming up that we are super excited about! We’re going to be hosting a PJ bottom making workshop with the fantastic @studio.spokes where the fabric we’re going to be using is from vintage bed sheets. We’re also excited about the sustainability element that’s becoming prominent in crafting supplies, we have some really beautiful eco-buttons due in and all of our macrame cords and other supplies from Jolly Good Yarns are all either made from recycled materials or environmentally friendly materials. Do you visit any trade shows? We tend to visit Top Drawer for the gift aspect to the shop but are planning on visiting a lot more next year. We like to go to markets and events like the Stitch Festival to try and discover new and emerging suppliers too as we like seeing the new and different perspectives on craft kits and haberdashery. Are you active on social media? How is this useful for the business? We’re active on social media and have @happydashery on Instagram and Facebook. We’re not as disciplined as we should be and don’t post as much as we could, we tend to get carried away with being in the shops or in the moment at the craft workshops. Do you have any plans for the future of the store? We’re mid expanding into our new permanent workshop and haberdashery/ craft supplies shop, which is next to our existing store. It seems like a crazy thing to do now when everything is so tight, but it’s giving us the opportunity to really develop our workshops as we want to. To have this permanent creative space is so exciting, we have a lovely creative community in Leighton Buzzard and it’s giving us this potential to further build and develop these relationships and further add to the workshops we already offer. Not only that, but we’re going to be offering crafty drop ins, so that makers can come along and use the space alongside other creatives, we’re going to be offering drop-in sessions for ceramic painting and are also developing our resources bank and craft library. We have this dream of it developing into a real creative hub. Do you have any tips for people looking to start their own retail venture? Of course you need to have your business plan and to have completed all the research but there’s a huge element of also following your gut. If you listen to a lot of the noise on social media then the high streets are already dead... this really isn’t the case. Don’t get us wrong, it’s tough going out there, but there’s also a lot of hope and a lot of need for social connection and creative connection too. Just go for it, get started, do the thing, don’t wait for perfection, just go for it and tweak and perfect as you go. What is the one product you couldn’t live without? Sarah is definitely the messiest crafter and has multiple projects on the go at any time so couldn’t live without the Aykasa crates to sort and store all of her stashes in. Carrie is the macrame queen and couldn’t live without a constant supply of Jolly Good Yarn 5mm macrame cords in a selection of the brightest colours, she’s constantly hoping for the day they release them in a selection of neon colours! HAPPYDASHERY 19 & 21 High Street, Leighton Buzzard, Beds, LU7 1DN www.happydashery.co.uk
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