Lydia Shenton-Smith's Blog

This week we have all worked as a team to move the necessary stock upstairs and to start merchandising the new store according to the collections we have, ready for reopening on the 12th April. This is the first time we will have welcomed customers into this store so this has been lovely to see the shop coming together. As before now we have had all the stock downstairs and upstairs has not been ready for inviting customers in to shop.   

A few weeks ago we all went on the buying trip in London for Annette Gortz and Sarah Pacini. This was a great experience for Katy and I as we got to see the initial decisions behind which pieces they choose and for what reasons. This was an amazing insight into the interactions between our business and the suppliers and we had the chance to see what styles and trends are going into the next season.  

This week we have made progress with the new changing room, getting ready to reopen the new shop. We have all helped to paint the walls and have had decorators in to put up our new wall paper and rails. This has been such a nice task to be involved in as we can finally see the new shop portraying our brand and getting ready for customers to be able to come back into store. 

This week in work we have completed the Rundholz buying trip... Online! This was a very odd experience as normally we would go to Dusseldorf to see and try on the pieces in person, however due to Covid-19 we were not able to go. Through doing this online, it was very different, we can not have the experience of feeling the fabrics, seeing the patterns in person or trying the pieces on ourselves. Rundholz did kindly send some samples to us, however, clearly they can not send the entire collections, leaving us to try and imagine what certain patterns will look like on certain fabrics and how certain styles will fit. We are all hoping that the quality of our buy for Autumn Winter 2021 will not be reduced due to having to complete the buying trip online. 

As we have faced issues due to Brexit with the arrival of our stock and increased taxes to receive our stock. Our international customers have also faced problems regarding taxes and import charges to receive their orders. To try and reduce this cost for our international customers, we have created a NON VAT discount code for them to use. This has worked incredibly well to keep our international customers purchasing, as they are spending so much on their items of clothing this extra cost has put some of our customers off purchasing from us. 

There has been an increase in the expectations of brand purpose and brands speaking out about a certain view or standpoint. This was shown in Pepsi, using Kendall Jenner in 2017 to portray a sense of peace around a Black Lives Matter movement. This ended in great backlash on the company and people were not happy with this advert. At Arabella, we take a stand on Recycling and Sustainable Fashion, this is a less controversial issue and seems to work well for us. We show this in our Pre-Loved collection and the packaging of our orders and parcels. 

This week we have finally received lots of our stock deliveries for Spring Summer 2021! All of our new stock have been stuck at customs for weeks due to Brexit, this has caused some issues for us as our delivery schedule hasn't been as expected. This has caused delays in our customers getting their pieces they have been waiting for and in some cases frustration from these customers. It also means we have had a very manic week trying to get many stock deliveries online at once, when usually these deliveries would have been spaced out over more time. 

Twitter are planning to create a 'fleets' update, this is a tweet that can be posted and is only visible for 24 hours. The idea behind this update is to make it easier and make people feel comfortable talking about issues and possibly controversial topics. This could provide positive aspects such as more customer interaction as they will be less worried about their comment, likes and shares being on the internet for people to look back at. However, it would not allow for us to go back and view customer comments or feedback. At Arabella, we do not use Twitter however if we were to use it this could be a good feature for us to use. 

Here is some additional research I have looked into around some banned adverts in 2020. The ASA, the Advertising Standards Agency banned adverts from Sky's TV and Netflix Bundles. Sky's advert promoted a £20 or £25 singular payment to setup for new customers. they failed to make it clear that existing customers would have to pay a fee of up to £219. This is providing misleading information on the deals that were offered, if these fees were made clear in the advert then it would have been sufficiently addressing the deals that were on offer to the new customers.  I agree with the decision that the ASA made as it is unfair to keep hidden costs from the customers. This has shown the importance of ensuring all customers, whether new or existing, have full awareness of any costs that they may encounter. This relates to our business as the minute as some of our international customers are facing import taxes on their orders due to Brexit, this is why we have to make this clear on our...