"Only Good Food Goes to
Organic Heaven"
LONG TIME NO SEE..
FullNews Archive coming soon
It’s been over three months since I last updated this page – apologies for that. A lot has happened in that time, which I will briefly review:
The upstairs section finally opened and customers are slowly but surely venturing up to see our expanded range of toiletries and eco-friendly cleaning products displayed on beautiful, purpose built shelving. Having opened almost 3 years ago with 700 product lines, we now have almost double that many!
We had our best Christmas ever, with sales for the Christmas week itself just £34 short of £5,000. Year 1’s total sales was £113,000, year 2 £135,000 and year 3 is expected to be £160,000. However….
….despite producing over £400,000 in sales over the past 145 weeks, our overdraft hasn’t budged an inch and we are only starting to pay back some of the money we borrowed (not helped by the fact that we borrowed yet more to help finance the expansion upstairs). So we’ve reviewed our expenses and made some changes including charging (cost price) for our paper bags, increasing the minimum debit card limit (to a modest £5) and reduced the discount % we offer to various types of customer. The latter alone was costing us close to £100 per week!
We’ve also looked at ways of generating more income and, to that end, are launching a home delivery service. We’ve completely revised our price list which you can access via the Product Range tab. Please email me for further details.
We’ve re-rated all 1,300 products against our updated ethical criteria and have another 100 loyalty cards for new customers to use. Once things on the financial front are more stable, we intend to use our unique ethical points scheme as the main vehicle for delivering benefits to our loyal customers (sounds like I’ve swallowed a book of business soundbites!)
We’ve poured over the last three years’ worth of magazines we stock, cut out interesting articles and assembled 15 themed folders for customers to peruse whilst they enjoy a free cup of tea and relax in our little seating area upstairs. Themes include Fairtrade, GM, animal testing and toiletry ingredients to avoid. We’ve also started stocking books, something we didn’t want to do whilst Peak Books was open. The selection is very modest, but we’re planning to extend the range very soon
We’re in the process of analysing all of our food products to establish those that are suitable for various diets and allergies – such as dairy, wheat, gluten and sugar. Once completed, these will be available as lists in the shop for customers to use
I have to say that there is still a great buzz in the shop and, even though Becky and I are getting paid the equivalent of less than £3/hour, I really don’t mind that much. Maybe I should be MORE money-minded – certainly it would be nice to be rid of the overdraft – but I feel proud that we have created something that is valued by a relatively small but special group of people: our customers. We’re on first name terms with many of them and they are vocal in their appreciation for what we do, which is lovely!
Over the next year our major focus is on developing the information side of the business, with leaflets for each product area (eg. pulses & grains, flours). As an ex-teacher I’d also like to develop some curriculum materials and would be interested in hearing from local teachers who may be interested in collaborating with me.
Now it’s over to you – comments please!