Tag: planning for the new year

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What will be in store for 2023?

I hope you had a lovely Christmas, however you celebrate.  As we all prepare for a new year to start, I thought it might be nice to talk a little about plans for 2023.

The year starts with a visit to a local trade fair which I’m really excited about as we haven’t been for a couple of years I think?  Certainly we didn’t go this year, so it will be nice to search out some new potential suppliers and to see what our current suppliers have planned.  I’m hoping to stock a variation of the nesting snowmen as they proved popular, and maybe some more mini snow globes too?

Bigger plans for this year are to find more markets for our stall, perhaps attend Beverley this year and maybe even Lincoln (if we can get offered a space that is).  I’m going to be working hard to improve the website too, as those sales really keep us ticking over between markets.  I know I need better descriptions and images so that’s the focus.

I’m also changing up our system at our ‘base’ (aka the dining room) so that we can manage orders more efficiently.  If my aim is for ten orders a day to come through online, I need a way to get them processed and out next day as usual.

We have a 20% off sale running right now so that I can implement the new system, so if you had money put aside for January sales hop over to the shop to take a look.

Here’s to a happy and healthy new year for you all.

Cari

 

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The one with the wrong boxes…

Hello, hope you got to celebrate Christmas in whatever way you choose and that you’ve been able to relax a bit over the last few days.  We were lucky enough to visit our family and we’re now starting to prep for New Year.

We’re currently half way through painting our living room, so yesterday we got a bit more of that done and switched round some furniture.  I’m trying to put plans in place for our forecast website growth, so all my paperwork is organised and we have plenty of postage labels too.

One of my big goals is to turn our downstairs ‘office’ (aka the dumping ground) into a mini warehouse/dispatch area (it’s not even big enough to swing a cat).  This means sorting out the spare bedroom into a new office area, then getting some strong shelving ready for the next stock delivery in the summer.  It’s a big job that I had planned for this summer, but you know how I am with plans – it just didn’t happen.

For now I’m just doing what I can to be ready, which meant ordering some smaller postal boxes (I got orders through on Boxing Day – how cool is that?).

The new boxes arrived today, a day earlier than expected (yay!) so I assembled some ready for packing.

The orders didn’t fit.

I had measured so carefully, trawled websites until I found just the right size, but they were millimetres too small.

Frustrated, we reverted back to cutting down the larger boxes for these orders.  The new boxes will still be useful for the smaller items like our glass angels or the glass trees, so won’t be wasted.

I’m excited for 2022 now, we’ve had an amazing 2021 season and I’m so grateful for each and every one of you who have supported us.  All the hard work over the last ten+ years is finally paying off.

Wishing you a very Happy and healthy New Year!

Cari & family