Designer Dressed Steiff Bears Auction

Steiff Teddy Bears have become one of the most popular items at Your Life Your Style since we introduced them last year, so I thought you might be interested in an auction of Steiffs dressed by top fashion designers. Vivienne Westwood, Stella McCartney, Betty Jackson and Lulu Guinness are among many whose designer bears will be benefitting Living Paintings, a charity who have designed a touch and sound system to bring picture to life those who cannot see.
The auction is at the V & A in London on 25 February 2010. For more details visit Living Paintings.

Is Packaging Your Guilty Pleasure?

We’ve just got in a bunch of lovely new Dora Designs products at Your Life Your Style. Nestled among the Dalmatian draught excluder, the poodle doorstop, the monkey bookends and curled cat paperweight are some new e-leather animal doorstops. E-Leather is a new eco-friendly kind of leather reconstituted from offcuts.

It set me thinking about how we’re all (well, most of us) guilty these days about the effect something we enjoy may have on the environment. It could be driving a car or buying imported vegetables. My own secret pleasure is packaging. For instance, I once bought a pair of Ted Baker underpants just because they came in a box with a lid that was held by a magnet. Most underpants seem to come in some kind of cardboard box even though we all know they could be piled up loose on a table.

My wife got some GHD hair straighteners. I don’t know if they really the best money can buy but their packaging certainly is. I am normally very good at recycling my packaging but I confess I can’t bring myself to throw that particular box away.

Maybe we always need the excitement of doing something wrong. People used to get a secret pleasure from looking at porn but that’s pretty open nowadays. Is packaging  porn for the 21^st century?

Recession. What Recession?

You may wonder how British retailers including my shop Your Life Your Style can be celebrating a record Christmas in the midst of the worst recession since the Second World War? I don't find it surprising. I was marketing a theatre during the 90s recession and ticket sales boomed. Similarly West End theatres boasted record takings last year.

I believe the reason is most people aren't directly affected by a recession. As long as they still have a job, they may even be better off because of lower interest rates on their debts. In troubled economic times, people are wary about the future so they avoid big payments that may increase their debts or reduce their savings, such as holidays or cars, but they still want the pleasure of spending on themselves so they go shopping or treat themselves to day outings. A retail or leisure business blaming the recession for poor figures probably needs to look a little harder for other reasons.


I think we got a false impression about the effect of the recession because of Christmas 2008 when, in the immediate aftermath of the financial collapse, shops started panic discounting. A number of businesses like Woolworth and MFI went bust but these were weak businesses that would have gone anyway. The usual suspects like wrong products, weak marketing, bad location and the threat of online are much more likely to be responsible for poor performance.

Sale Away

The Sales seem to be over pretty quickly this year. Helped no doubt by the Big Freeze, we at Your Life Your Style found that the bargain hunters had dried up by the first week in January and most of our sales were once again full priced gifts and accessories.

We prefer the John Lewis 'clearance' approach, genuinely selling off stock cheaply that we have too much of. I don't like the cynical exploitation of a genuine need favoured by some retailers who buy stock specially for a Sale.
Either way, I imagine Sales did as well for other retailers as for us this year because unlike last year there was very little of the pre-Christmas panic discounting going on and consumers were probably wanting to get their purchases done before VAT went up.

Draught Excluder Sales Boom In Big Freeze

As my mother said to me when I was a little boy and down in the dumps, 'When one door closes, another one opens.' Actually she said, 'When one door closes, another one slams in  your face' but then she always had a good dose of Yorkshire cynicism.
Here's another saying my mother favoured: 'Don't put all your eggs in one basket'. Good business advice. It's true that when things go wrong, there is usually an opportunity you hadn't noticed before because you were too busy with things going right. But a shrewd business person will prepare for the bad days. When I was a clothing retailer, I sold t-shirts on hot days and lined jackets when it was cold, wide brimmed hats when it was sunny and wellington boots when it rained.

These last few days our shop in Winchester has suffered from the Big Freeze and everybody not venturing out onto the slippery roads and pavements. On the other hand our Your Life Your Style website has been doing a roaring trade in Dora Designs animal draught excluders. So much so that our total turnover is actually well up on the same time last year.
'Every cloud has a silver lining' as my mother no doubt would have said.

Smiling Vacuum Cleans Up

When you’re involved in a small business like Your Life Your Style, you find yourself doing all sorts of tasks you previously left to others. I’ve had to become a bookkeeper, a sign maker, a decorator and, every so often, a cleaner. 

Vacuuming isn't the most exciting job but what makes it a bit more enjoyable for me is our vacuum cleaner. He's called Henry, he's bright red and he has a lovely smiling face. When he follows me around, it's like having a friendly faithful pet. He certainly cheers me up in the morning but that wouldn't be more than clever marketing by Numatic if he wasn't also the best vacuum cleaner we've ever had.

Pudsey Bear And The Unlimited Appeal of Steiff

Until we started selling Steiff teddy bears, I have to admit they had completely passed under my radar. Now I love these beautifully made toys and their appealing faces and I see references to them everywhere. The other day I read that E H Shepherd’s original drawing of Winnie the Pooh was based on the bear that belonged to A A Milne’s son- and was made by Steiff.

                                  

Amazingly, although he’s been around for 24 years, Steiff have never produced a Pudsey Bear. Until now. This year a Steiff Pudsey made of yellow mohair will be available in a Limited Edition of 2009 pieces, complete with buttoned ear tag. He costs £150 but could be worth a great deal more in a few years time. £30 from each sale goes to the BBC's Children In Need appeal for disadvantaged children.

We’re expecting him in just by the end of November but he can be ordered inadvance from the Your Life Your Style website.

Delivering The Goods

Like Amazon and others, we've switched frrom the Post Office to private couriers to ship our online and phone orders. We're very impressed so far with the service we're receiving from Fastway. It's a fairly new network of independent franchisees who each have their own area in which they collect and deliver. At present they cover about 70% of the country and they offer an excellent price and service.
It looked like the postal strikes would be a blow to our business but we find we're saving on delivery costs as well as having a service that picks up from our door. It's a shame that a dispute about the unprofitable door-to-door delivery service which clearly is in need of reform but not necessarily in the ways proposed by the management should damage the profitable part of the Post Office business.

If Don't Ask, You Don't Sell

I never cease to be amazed by my wife Julia and my sister-in-law Wendy's ability to sell to customers in the Your Life Your Style shop. They never force themselves or a product but, by an apparently simple process of making contact ('hello'), offering to help, listening carefully to the customer's needs and being able to match products to those requirements, they sell far more than any pushy or passive salesperson.

Carbon Footprint Made By Slipper

At our shop Your Life Your Style, we're very excited by the arrival of new products from Moore And Moore of Devon.
We're selling their slippers and hot water bottles (including some that come with soft toys for children), all handmade in incredibly soft faux fur. You can turn the central heating down and still feel warm as toast. What a luxurious way to reduce your carbon footprint.
And if you want to do even more to save on your heating, we have Dora Designs' gorgeous animal draught excluders.

The Last Post

I've always thought it was a marvellous thing that you can post a letter and the Royal Mail will deliver it to someone's letter box anywhere in the country probably the next day for a flat rate.
But since I've been involved in a business that relies on sending parcels I have quite a different impression of the mail service. Many of the packages we send are under 2Kg and therefore qualify to be sent as a £4.41 Standard Parcel. Anything heavier, it's cheaper to send by courier. Firms like DHL, UPS and the Fastway all offer not only a better price but also collect from the door and track the parcels with a barcode.
Now strikes have meant that we can't rely on the Royal Mail at all. Online customers of Your Life Your Style expect a reliable speedy service. So it was perfect timing when Fastway arrived at our door with a service that is cheaper than Royal Mail even for smaller packages- and they come into the shop to collect, thus avoiding a long wait in a Post Offic queue. Of course, the Royal Mail will also collect- provided you spend over £15,000 a year with them or are willing to pay £500 per annum!
It seems symptomatic of state owned businesses- or indeed any companies that have grown complacent on lack of competition- that the Royal Mail's management and workers live in a past where enterprise and efficiency are way down the list of priorities compared with, say, resisting change.
The Royal Mail should look at the example of Fastway where franchisees are 100% committed to giving a good service because they have a stake in the business.

NHS- Good Product, Not So Good Service

As someone who has had two fairly serious illnesses in the last few years, I feel I'm in a good position to comment on the current debate about the NHS.
When I developed Rheumatoid Arthritis three years ago, the joints in my fingers and wrists swelled to twice their normal size and I was considerably debilitated. Initially I was treated privately but went on to the NHS when it became clear I would need ongoing treatment, for which private insurance wouldn't pay. The NHS has been pretty good: I receive thousands of pounds worth of drugs that ensure I am virtually sympton free, and regular outpatient visits and treatments which are always excellent.
There are shortcomings though- the regularity with which appointments are postponed, and the fact that the cost of the main drug I receive has been questioned even though it leaves RA sufferers like myself virtually symptomless .
Five years ago, I was diagnosed with prostate cancer and was treated privately by brachytherapy which, without going into details, has far less side effects than other treatments but which wasn't available at that time on the NHS. The private room aftercare was wonderful.
A relative in his late seventies was recently given two hugely expensive life saving operations from an top class specialist on the NHS. There is no way health insurance would have been an option for a man of his age. However his aftercare left a lot to be desired with caring staff overworked and some others completely indifferent to his needs.
When you run a business, especially in retailing like Your Life Your Style, you know that you must not only provide a good value product but that you must also give superb service. The NHS usually gets the first right but falls down far too often at the second. It's the classic failing of an organisation that lacks competition and doesn't put people first, though I don't doubt that artificial competition in the form of outsourcing and targets has also had a damaging effect.
I used to receive health insurance through my employer. I was tempted to give it up when I went into business for myself but all my experience tells me to carry on paying the extortionate health insurance premiums, at least for the time being. On the other hand, the NHS means that anyone who is ill can be treated irrespective of age or income and I wouldn't hesitate to defend it against the uninformed criticisms of American conservatives.

There's More To Life Than Work

Back from France and what a contrast in attitudes to work. An Englishman who lives there told us how he despairs of getting the locals to do any work. But to me that's the attraction. They do the minimum to get by and prefer to eat and relax. Why not when you live in such a hot and food-rich environment?
Of course, the offhand approach of some male waiters can be frustrating but generally they offer friendly albeit slow service in shops and cafes. Chill out, I say to us Anglo Saxons and our work ethic, at least when on holiday.
Still, it's nice to be back and working hard, because that has its rewards too.

A Door Opens On The High Street

The high street is under threat but there's also an opportunity. Shops that sell mass produced products, shops that have grown too big to care, they may go. But new shops can take their place. It's a rare chance for entrepreneurial independents to break into the high street- businesses more in touch with customers' tastes and needs.
Our local council working with the local paper has launched a website shopinhampshire.co.uk to encourage us to support the local high street. Our shop Your Life Your Styleis there and, given the chance, we'll be on more local high streets as well.

Quality Wins

Your Life Your Style is to be Winchester's stockist of Steiff teddy bears. It may be you haven't heard of Steiff but to anyone who collects these delightful furry toys, they are the number one. Why? Partly because they've been making bears for 100 years but mainly because the quality is superb.
Like many German firms, Steiff bring together good design, precision manufacturing and obseesive quality control. They tried making some of their bears in China but found so many items were below their standard that they went back to making them exclusively in Germany.
Our own manufacturers can learn from this. For years, British goods became a by-word for shoddy, thanks to complacency and lack of worker involvement. Then the far east took over mass production.
When Britain did something well, it was a world beater- Rolls Royce or malt whisky for example. Thankfully a new generation of British manufacturers are in that tradition and recognise that you can't beat the Chinese on price but you can succeed by offering good design, skilled manufacture and quality control.
We visited the Grayshott factory this week which houses Dartington Pottery. As well as the special edition pieces we stock, they provide crockery for many restaurants. The work of these thirty or so people, who operate as a co-operative, is breathtaking in its skill and care. If a customer wants cheap ceramics, China beckons but if they want quality and value, Grayshott is there for them, and offers an example to British manufacturers in the 21st century.

Dora Designs On Facebook- Fun Comes First

Our shop Your Life Your Style already has a Facebook page. We've now started an I Love Dora Designs group. We want people who love Dora Designs to find out more about Doras, post photos and news, and to talk to each other. This is not set up to sell Doras but many successful businesses on the internet have learnt that by providing a useful service first, sales follow. If we do sell a few Doras, we'll be happy but, if not, it's still fun to run a Dora Designs Fan Club.

The Price Of Free

I'm far from the first to say this but I'll add my voice to the growing opposition to 'free' information sites on the internet. For a start, none are really free. The internet has reduced the cost of communication but the free information on Google Search is paid for by advertising, the free YouTube service is paid for by Google, the free news is provided by paid for newspapers, the free BBC sites are paid for by licence fees, and so on.
The best things in life are free. And, along with sunsets and making love, I think work done by volunteers is admirable. It's wonderful that so many people are happy to give of their time to provide information online to help or inspire others, just as people through the ages have helped others out of sheer altruism.
What I think is dangerous is the dissemination of material for free that it cost someone something to produce. If those producers- news organisations, music companies, publishers- are put out of business, then there will nothing left to put online for free.

We Need Some Old Fashioned Banking

Today Your Life Your Style changes banks. We've given up on HSBC after feeling distinctly uncared for. What surprises me is that HSBC have never asked why we're leaving. You would think every business would want to improve its customer service yet, despite describing themselves as 'the world's local bank', HSBC appear to be just another global bank who are more bothered with big investments than small customers.

A Gift From Harrogate

Back from the Harrogate Home & Gift Trade Fair with some great new products, which we'll be introducing to the Your Life Your Style website and shop in the next few weeks. The only downside was lack of sleep.
We stayed one night at the Harrogate Travelodge,looking out over a pub. Drunken conversations wafted up until well after midnight, followed at about 2 a.m. by loud revellers singing at the top of their voices, then at 5 a.m. the emptying of the bottle skip into a collection lorry. The luxurious Queens Hotel in Leeds the previous night was about the same price (special Saturday offer) and was a wonderful experience, topped by a flawless meal in The Restaurant Bar And Grill in Leeds City Square.

Your Frontline Is Your Business

Seth Godin makes a good point in his blog about the importance of managers keeping in touch with the front line. When I took over responsibility for the operational side of a theatre, I spent time doing or shadowing all the various jobs. It was an eye-opener and the experience helped me be aware how much of a gap there is between management theory and frontline practice when you have real people dealing with each other, who may be tired, confused or lacking information. As the CEO of Sony once said, 'The company is only as good as its latest recruit.'
Neither can executives rely on middle managers for a true picture of what's going on. They often don't want to admit that their staff are in difficulty in case it reflects on them. I've seen from close by the disastrous consquences to staff morale and company results, when senior managers are out of direct touch with their employees.
I like the small businesses I'm involved in now because I'm in constant touch with all colleagues and I experience at first hand what's going on with customers and suppliers. I find the Your Life Your Style online shop more difficult from this point of view, because while there is endless analysis available of site visitors and customers, I rarely get to actually speak to them. I like these sites where you can click to 'speak' to a real person.