The Summer of Small Business Love

Last weekend we saw #shopindependentday - a special day for sellers and buyers, all about the originality, innovation and craftsmanship at the heart of small businesses across the UK. But it doesn't just stop there... this is a whole movement that you are also part of!

It's actually the Summer of Small Business Love - an entire season dedicated to shopping small. The campaign was started by Holly Tucker, joint founder of Not On The High Street, who now runs Holly&Co, a site for small, creative British businesses up and down the country. Holly says, "We want to encourage the nation to show heart by shopping small, asking everyone to think how they could change their usual spending behaviour to support our independents"

When you consider that 99.9% of UK companies are small businesses who contribute massively to the local economy, it seems strange that those independent tiny businesses need your help. But they do. We do, I do - because I'm one of them too! Especially now. As Holly stated, "Some of the most colourful and creative businesses out there are independently owned, yet these same businesses have been hit the hardest in recent years. If we don’t support them at this crucial time, we are at risk of losing them altogether. So we need to act now, working collectively to ensure this doesn’t happen."

The world needs small businesses because they're the ones that bring about creativity, originality, imagination - they're actually the driving force behind the big businesses. Because behind every great big company, there has to be a great micro business!

Tiny businesses like mine don't have marketing budgets like large organisations, but what we do have is creativity and a hell of a lot of drive - which is why we're joining together to show the world just how much you need us! Shopping small is for life, not just for a pandemic. Shopping local truly helps your local economy. Shopping independent means you're keeping alive all that creativity and originality - and directly supporting a real life actual person (not a load of fat bankers and investors)!

So this summer I have just one ask of you: vote with your money, spend your money wisely, help the economy, support the independents - and at the same time you'll be discovering a whole world of originality and gorgeousness, and receive the most fabulous service to boot (because no one loves their customers quite as much as a small business)! Look out for the #CampaignShopIndependent across social media.

Sarah x

The changing face of retail in a time of Covid...

Non essential bricks and mortar shops are reopening on Monday after months of being closed - but if feels as though they’ll be opening their doors to a much changed retail landscape. So many high street names have gone permanently. It’s so sad to see household names like Debenhams go, but in a way, for many of these retailers it isn’t a huge surprise. Some of these businesses have been slow to realise that it isn’t just about making cold hard cash, it’s about putting the customer first and in the front when they make decisions about how their business evolves and behaves. Shopping nowadays is about adapting to change, realising what people want - it’s about conscience , responsibility, being fresh and innovative.

Covid has forced retail to change or die. Old established retailers going bust makes us all sad because we have a connection built through years of tradition. I still think the most shocking closure in recent years was seeing Woolworths go, and I still miss it!

My local Woolies in Dereham before it closed

I think many of us still feel a bit nervous about going back to shopping on the high street - we’ve spent a year training ourselves to stay safe, be precautious and careful, and I think a lot of us will be feeling naturally reticent about wandering around shops like we used to. Plus, of course, we’re still going to be wearing face masks and social distancing, and that makes the thought of browsing casually around shops still feel pretty impossible and gloomy for the time being.

As a small business owner, it’s hard to feel confident when you see huge, established retailers struggling to survive. It takes nerves of steel not to run for the hills sometimes! But it’s important to remind yourself that being successful isn’t just about the big numbers: lots of shops, big profit margins, a huge staff. Now, more than ever, it’s about putting the customer first, thinking about what they need and like, helping them, and being responsible when it comes to the planet. 

I’ve seen a complete shift over the 12 years since I started PhotoFairytales - we’re all so much more mindful about what we bring into our lives. Buying conscientiously rather than impulsively, being deliberate in our choices. What we buy is a commitment. It’s about buying things we love from retailers we care about, rather than just ‘stuff’ (for want of a better word!). With so many people losing their jobs and having to watch what they spend over the last year, this is more important than it ever was.

I believe that customers now don’t buy ‘from’, they buy ‘into’. We’ve all done it: buying from Shop A because it makes us feel good (better service, nicer shop, better buying experience, more ‘quality’ feeling…). Sometimes it isn’t all about cost, even in times of austerity. It’s more complex than that now. Customers are far more aware of how a business conducts itself, how in touch with it’s customers it is, with changing styles and trends, with the care and attention it puts into earning your custom.

In theory, it should be much easier for a bricks and mortar shop to be able to look after it’s customers: after all, it sees them face to face. But all too often that’s not the case. My very first job was working on the shop floor of Laura Ashley. We were told that when a customer pays using their credit card we should surreptitiously read the name on the card, and then say “thank you Mrs X” as we passed it back to them. Call me a rebel (and I did get told off more than once), but I NEVER did that - apart from the fact that it felt weird and a bit stalker-ish, it wasn’t remotely natural! It felt fake. And despite it trying to make it feel more personal for the customer I thought then (and still do) that it made it more impersonal. Was I right? What would you feel if a member of sales staff did that with your card?!

Laura Ashley in Norwich... as was

Face to face retailers don’t have the monopoly when it comes to looking after customers. That’s because it’s not all about the transaction, it’s about service, care, aftercare, advice, expert knowledge, giving people time, being approachable and helpful, letting people know you’re there if they need you (and making sure you get back to them in a timely fashion when they do!). Excellent service can be replicated online - and it’s your right to expect it! 

I suppose essentially what I’m saying is that every pound spent is a vote - and we should all vote wisely! Imagine for a minute if every retailer only had 4 years, like a government. After 4 years they only get to stay open if customers vote for them. And in a way, that’s basically what we’ve all been doing: voting, with our hard earned cash! So, here’s my bit of ‘electioneering’!:

• My manifesto is: Better gifts, better experience - to make shopping enjoyable and friendly. Customers are my community, people with a shared philosophy. The distance between me (Sarah) and you (lovely customer) should be tiny (especially when compared to the big high street retailers).
• My philosophy is: Happy customers, happy business. It’s that simple. 
• My mission is: To help people find a gift that they will love giving, to make other people as passionate about gift giving as I am. To consistently work hard at adapting, evolving, to follow styles and trends whilst maintaining the sense of quality, detail and longevity.

My business has to be sustainable for me too; I have to be able to sustain my family, keep the orders rolling in. Tiny independent businesses like mine (run from our family home, no staff, no warehouse, no ‘departments’, just me) don’t have the money, staff or advertising budgets that large companies do. But what we do have is agility. We can adapt with speed to offer people what they want: quickly, efficiently, with flair and personality. Businesses like mine remember customers, they have a friendly personal way of doing business - so many people that I count as friends were once customers. It’s about building relationships, not reading a name of a credit card as you hand it back.

There’s always going to be a place for high street shops, of course there is. All I ask, on my behalf and all of those other micro online businesses out there, is that you keep us in mind over the next 12 months. We kept going through all 3 lockdowns, with a cheery (mostly) disposition, adapting to the weird fluctuations of the retail world during coronavirus (zero orders one week, sales up 200% the following week, post office counters not always open when we thought they’d be, people suddenly needing to buy face masks rather than meals out!). We’ve adapted, cared, invented and evolved - and whilst it’s been stressful and meant a lot of long hours or hard work, it’s also been a hell of a lot of fun: long may it continue!

Stay safe, stay well,

Sarah x

The angst of the weekly food shop - 4 hacks to make it less stressful and how to stick to the budget!

Like most families in recent times, we’ve discovered that (contrary to what the supermarkets will have us believe - shopping basket comparisons, blah blah) buying the weekly shop has definitely become more expensive. I’m a strict stick-to-the-budget-every-week kind of woman, but I’ve noticed its getting harder and harder to stick to the target each week.

So, Operation Clawback is in place…

1: Internet shopping is the way to go...
I do our food shopping online. I hate, HATE, doing those massive supermarket shops. Just looking at the image below makes me feel stressed! I used to shuffle around the enormous supermarket every Saturday with armfuls of toilet roll and bread and bleach, trying to find where the husband had wandered off to WITH THE TROLLEY AGAIN, and swearing under my breath because of PEOPLE! But I find its so much easier to stick to the budget when I shop online. I can find all the special offers in one place, I can compare prices much more easily - and, crucially, I can see how much its going to cost me before I pay.

2: I buy from more than one place…
Having said what I said in the last paragraph, I do still do a supermarket shop - but this time it’s in a much smaller supermarket that I know (because I’ve methodically, aka sadly, checked prices against my usual shop) is cheaper for specific items. Basically, we're talking Aldi time. It’s a quicker shopping experience because I know exactly what I’m going to buy and it’s a much smaller shop so I can be in and out in half an hour.

3: The supermarket checkout lottery
Now there's something that always has a kind of ‘game show’ feel about it when you shop in the actual, you know, shop - you never quite know how much its going to cost until you’re there with your purse in hand. Of course, you could fastidiously add it all up as you go round - but no, I don’t think my brain could cope with that. At least, not when it’s also trying to cope with working out Will We Like It/Is There A Cheaper Alternative/How Long Does It Take To Cook/Is Anyone Allergic To It/How Long Will It Last/What’s In It/Is It Healthy Or At Least Not Unhealthy, etc, etc, etc. Throw ‘adding up as I go along’ into the mix and I might crawl into a ball on the floor and start to rock… So, here’s a tip for you: a friend once told me that her mum advised her to basically round everything up or down to 50p or a £1 as it goes in the trolley. So, as you tip those 25p tinned tomatoes into the trolley mentally think “50p”. As you choose a that toilet roll for £2.00 think “£1”. It makes it easier to add up - and can actually be surprisingly accurate. Well, it used to be surprisingly accurate. Now I find you need to round up and down to £1 or £2. See, I said food prices were getting more expensive!

4:Impulse buying be gone!
But overall online food shopping for me is the way to go. Plus, I can do it by myself. No family chucking stuff into the trolley without my noticing (Fray Bentos Pies that sit so long in the cupboard they almost become part of the family), no complaints when I buy something they don’t like/want, being able to stick to my list. I know the apparent trend now is not to do a big weekly shop - we’re all supposed to be nipping into the local mini-supermarket on the way home to buy food for the next 24 hours and no more. Living for the moment. Fancy artichokes on toast and balsamic flavoured ice cream for tea tonight? Then that’s what we’ll be having. Not in the PhotoFairytales household though. I’m sticking to the retro-style weekly shop. Besides, it means we have that lovely cupboard glut sensation. You know, that feeling when you’ve just done ‘the big shop’ and the fridge is groaning with salad and freshness, and the cupboards are full of treats and there’s biscuits in the tin.

The downside of course is that by the end of the week we’re down to ‘freezer surprise’ for dinner and eyeing up the chocolate coins the Tooth Fairy entrusts me with…

Sarah :)

Why is the High Street called the High Street?

Lots of times I talk about the fact that the items you find on PhotoFairytales you can’t find on the high street. Not being able to find something on the high street is seen as something that gives an item a sense of prestige and scarcity. If it’s something found on the high street then any Tom, Dick or Harry can buy it and that means it isn’t your special, unique discovery!

When you hear the term ‘high street’ you tend to picture a street aimed fairly squarely at retail, full of shops and bustle. But why is it called a ‘high street’, even if the street in question is actually named something completely different? Apparently it all started around 1000AD - when the word ‘high’ was used in the context of superiority (think ‘high society’, ‘high ranking’). A ‘high street’ also physically reflected a road that was built more substantially as a main thoroughfare - above all the mud and mire on normal streets!

So the main street through a town became the ‘high street’ because it was usually the only one that wasn’t a mud trail and along which retailers naturally wanted to sell their wares. Now High Street is the most common road name in the UK: there are nearly 5,500 of them. And they all look the same and sell the same stuff - which is why shopping online for your Christmas presents makes so much more sense!

Sarah ;)

The best school shoes: a mum's review

Toughees 'Pearl' school shoes

Like most children, my daughter Amy can be tough on shoes - particularly school shoes. Plus she grows so fast you can practically hear her stretching (a bit like rhubarb!). So buying shoes for school is a regular occurrence for us, and one that’s often a bit, well, fraught!

Girls of course, have an extra agenda: fashion/style/heel height. Oh, the battles over high heels, flimsy thin souls, patent leather, and slip on versus strap… So, this is my list of what I need from a decent school shoe:

• Mustn’t cost the earth (I hate the fact that most ‘decent’ children’s school shoes are now in the £35-£45 bracket - kids grow so fast you are often in that frustrating spot of having shoes that still look absolutely fine but no longer fit.)
• Mustn’t be too cheap either (because at the end of the day, you often get what you pay for)
• Must be leather (so they can be polished when they get scuffed, and they will breathe a bit too)
• No stupid high heels (she’s 10, she still wants to climb in the park and I also don’t want her tottering about - you’re a long time an adult, a short time a child, and I’ll be keeping her that way for a little while yet thank you shoe manufacturers!)
• No thin souls - they wear away too quickly and you get wet socks all the time

So, basically all I want when I go shopping is a good mid-priced leather school shoe that is more practical than fashionable. Doesn't seem like that much to ask, but it often is. Here are the shoes we've tried and tested:

• Cheap end: ie, supermarket shoes or cheaper high-street shoes (eg Stead & Simpson) - price around £15

Result: It’s rare to find leather shoes in the supermarket, they’re usually plastic or occasionally ‘coated leather’ (don’t be fooled, this isn’t proper leather and basically means they will scuff and wear like mad). We’ve found leather shoes in the high street for around this price, but the leather is low quality - it stretches and goes very baggy after a short amount of time (around 4-6 weeks we found) and ended up actually being too big. They usually need polishing every day to keep them looking good. The straps/fastenings don’t seem to hold up and tend to snap, fray and generally give up the ghost. We found they only last a couple of months before you end up thinking of buying new shoes again.

My rating: 2/5 (I’m being generous…)

• Expensive end: ie, Clarks, Hush Puppies, etc - price around £35-£45

Result: The leather quality on this type of shoes is always much better - when they get scuffed they can be polished effectively, and will look really good. The Clarks shoes we’ve had (admittedly, only a couple) have been a bit, well ‘meh’. Not great, not bad. One gripe I do have about Clarks is that we go to the shop, see lots of shoes on the shelf, then they only have one (or two, if you’re lucky) style in the size you need. And invariably they’re not the style that you and/or your child want. We do really like Hush Puppies though. They seem to be a little bit chunkier, and they come with a selection of insoles to help adjust the fitting so you get a great fit. The ones we’ve had have lasted brilliantly (months, rather than weeks), and they polish up beautifully.

My rating: 4/5 (would have been 5/5 but they are so expensive!)

• Middle End: ie, priced around £20-£25

Last September (approx 5.5 months ago) I wanted to find shoes that were more in this mid-price range - something good quality that might last. It was tricky, took a bit of scouring! But I think I may just have found the holy grail of school shoes… Toughees. This is a range of shoes that are made from extremely hard wearing leather, and are designed to go through the mill. They are made in non-polish leather, so a wipe with a damp cloth is often enough to bring them back to shine. You can polish them if you really need to though. We bought the “Pearl” design (which was a winner for Amy because it has a heel - high enough to excite her, low and wide enough for me!). It has a proper buckle rather than Velcro, and although this means it takes 5 seconds longer to put on, it does mean that you don’t end up with fastenings that have lost their stick (anyone who’s ever spent half an hour picking grass and fluff out of Velcro so that it sticks again will know what I mean!). Amy has been wearing hers to school every day, and they lasted brilliantly. She has only just worn them out (good timing as she's gone up a size again!), and the uppers still look almost as good as when we bought them (it was the sole that gave up in the end - just on one shoe, and probably due to riding her scooter and dragging her foot on the ground!). We paid £20 including delivery for hers from Amazon (in a junior size 5), and I think that’s pretty good value!

My rating: 5/5 (the winner!)

As her shoes have just given up I was really hoping that it would be a simple case of buying the exact same shoes again to see her through to the summer holidays. Alas I hadn't remembered that I was dealing with an aforementioned fussy little girl and it seems having the same shoes twice is not the done thing! So we've plumped for Hush Puppies again - but at least they were a half price bargain this time!

What shoes have you found to be the best for school? And which ones would you avoid like the plague (please name and shame!)? I’d love to hear about your own experience, so do please leave a comment and let me know.

Sarah :)

Edit - May 2016: I just wanted to let you know, in case you were wondering, that this post is entirely my own opinion based on my own experiences. It hasn't been sponsored in any way. And 3 years on, I still stand by Toughees - they're bloomin' good! Oh, and a little tip for you: if you get on their mailing list you'll often receive special offers ;) x

Saving things for best... or having it all now

Award-winning screenwriter, Nora Ephron (“When Harry Met Sally”) died in June of this year. She once wrote: “There are dreams that are never quite going to come true, ambitions that will never quite be realised. There are, in short, regrets.” When writing about the death of a close friend she said, “it taught me to always use the good bath oil.”

So, should we save things ‘for best’ - or should we seize the moment? Right now? Should we deny ourselves that thing we really want - make ourselves wait? Eke things out? Is life too short to deny ourselves its little pleasures?

As a child I remember having a sheet of Womble stickers. I loved those stickers. I loved them so much I never used them - they spent their life intact, never decorating my pencil case or school book. Never stuck where they shouldn’t be (on my bedroom wall). I also had a favourite colouring-in book - packed with pictures so intricate and lovely I didn’t want to colour them in. I wanted to save them. (Oh dear, I sound like a very uptight child!) Of course, I have no idea where those Womble stickers or that colouring book are now. Somewhere in the great landfill in the sky I guess. I should have used them up, shouldn’t I?

So, am I cured? Have I learnt my lesson? Erm, no - as a mum I still have to stop myself keeping back that gorgeous dress of Amy’s “for best” because let’s face it, children have this habit of growing and so growing out of things. So yes Amy, you can wear your “posh” Hello Kitty ballerina shoes around Tesco because if you don’t they’ll sit in the wardrobe waiting for the charity bag and you’ll never get to relish that thrill of glancing down at your feet and thinking, “ooooh, lovely shoes!”.

Now I’m not suggesting we all run into the streets and start grabbing and demanding the things we want, or run up a huge credit card bill in order to buy something we can ill afford. But maybe saving something special for a day that might not come just means we lose out altogether? Maybe we should always use the “for best” glasses, even if we’re only drinking plonk - or squash even? Yes, they could get broken but at least you can say you truly appreciate the finer things in life, instead of letting them just gather dust at the back of a cupboard.

Assuming you, dear reader, are like me and not massively wealthy or super rich, wouldn’t it be so much better to wring every last penny’s worth out of that lovely something you buy? Why shouldn’t you wear the posh knickers on a Wednesday?!

Look, you’ve already bought it, right? You own it, the purchase has been made, the money spent. So using it doesn’t mean you’re not being thrifty - it means you’re getting your money’s worth and having a bit of fun too. Denying ourselves the good stuff now does sort of imply that we’re not worth it now, but we might be in the future. What on earth is that all about?! Today isn’t a rehearsal, today is as good a day as any to pull those posh biscuits from the back of the cupboard (before they go out of date) and just, well, eat them.

Next time you pop to the corner shop, wear that swanky sweater you keep for best (and those posh knickers) and live your best life now. What do you think?

Sarah x