The future of the Highstreet looks bright!

i've read so many articles and comments recently about the imminent demise of the high street, that if i hadn't got the wit and the gumption, i'd chuck it all in and go back to being a corporate slave. my word, there are some negative people out there.

well, i don't believe it. in fact, i can see a much brighter future for britain's high streets and it's good for communities, good for shoppers, good for business and good for the country's dire economic status. in fact it's so good that the CEO of a global managed services corporation agrees with me and says it could lead to an economic and social revolution in the UK!

unfortunately, i can't name this CEO as he's currently in discussion with my highstreet heros, Totally Locally but here's the gist of it.

there is no doubt that internet shopping and increasingly, mobile shopping, are taking channel share from the highstreet. big and small chains are folding alike and we've certainly got a retail recession on our hands too. however, in the midst of that, Funky Rascal is growing. both in-store and online. How?

Because we're different and because we care. The attention we pay to our customers and their children in the shop means they feel special. When was the last time you felt special in Tesco?

Secondly, because we don't try to compete with Tesco or Primark or any other big box retailer. We're different, we have quality clothes, designed by people who care to be sold by people who care too. And this gets to the nub of the optimism.

It's not independent retailers who should be afraid of the rise of the supermarkets. It's the highstreet chains who aren't moving at lightening speed to adopt the behaviours and characteristics of their more nimble, independent counterparts.

And there will be more and more who fail as the big box retailers expand their soulless carparks on the edges of towns. And here's the optimism. Through schemes like Totally Locally, local people are rediscovering the hidden gems in their neighbourhoods. They're thinking more about what matters and they're beginning to appreciate that not everything you can buy at supermarkets is necessarily what you really want.

The highstreets will be repopulated with shops that deliver different products and fabulous customers service. They'll begin to mutate away from the generic set of shops we've come to know over the past 2 or 3 decades to something last seen probably 30 or more years ago. 

That CEO of the multi-billion dollar corporation believes it and when I heard that, I realised that was what I'd envisaged for our little business and how I see a town like Cupar evolving.

Putting the rose-tinted spectacles away, it'll not happen tomorrow and it'll take a phenomenal amount of work. But both those phrases could apply if I was working for NCR and how much satisfaction would that give me, compared to doing it for myself, my family, my community and for the greater good overall? No competition, is there?

The future's bright, the future's independent...

was it sysiphus?...

it's not that bad but you do need the patience of job to start your own retail business.

i received a job offer this week and i'll tell you, i was quite tempted. ok, the salary was rubbish but rubbish is better than nothing. however, a salary is now, to us, worse than the continual struggle of making every decision ourselves. just... ;-)

i'd post more often but there's not that much to say. we work hard from week to week, we share childcare, willy nilly, we try to tidy our house as much as we can when we're mentally and physically exhausted. life goes on...

i do begin to wonder quite what madness had overtaken me when i handed in my resignation (but, oh, was that a sweet, sweet moment), however, those moments pass and we get on with it. that doesn't mean the temptation of a comfortable salary doesn't tempt me but that would mean the end of what we're doing. simple as...

it reminds me of Camus (harking back to those halcyon days of simple education) and his existential philosophy. your life is generally humdrum, boring, everyday but it is defined by the highs and lows which break the humdrum - essentially. that's fairly simplistic but the highs and lows of what we do seem more colourful, more accentuated, more potent. and it's those highs and lows which i love.

watching lord sugar's "the apprentice" this season has touched a nerve for anne and i. put simply, an entrepreneur doesn't define themsleves as such; they are or they aren't. seeing that i'm on my 3rd go at this, i think i'm just addicted to it and as such, "i am". what i've seen from anne in the last 8 months, she is too.


you have to be prepared to be beaten, bullied, roughed up, have your dreams shattered (again and again) and still come out fighting. local people have told us that they'd heard we're shutting down!! you need elephant hide to do this. but we're now so far in and we're getting more and more support, it would be crazy to chuck it in.

and that's what this post is all about. we're up against it and we get in there each day with the one single, simple view: keep attacking. we know what we're doing and we know that more and more people love it every day. we're keeping the faith and more than that, we are the brand. funky rascal - because childhood's too short for pastel shades!

bring some colour into your life :-)

in with the big boys...

i posted on facebook a couple of days ago that i was pondering selling on amazon and most people seemed to think we'd be mad not to. well, i certainly felt quite privileged when i got the phone call from them. how flattering! imagine amazon asking little funky rascal to sell on their huge store.


but i was wary too. having worked for 2 big global corporations, i know they don't have an altruistic bone in their corporate cores when it comes to business, so what was in it for them? sure, we pay them £25 a month for maintenance, etc, 15% of every sale and they transfer revenue generated to us every 14 days. but there must be more?

of course there is and a quick search revealed why i was perhaps right to be wary. imagine amazon as a huge shopping centre where the majority of shops are amazon. but obviously in their virtual shopping centre there's always room to lease a bit more space to a retailer who carries products they don't. the small guy gets all the millions of customers coming through the doors every week and amazon rents the space and takes a cut of everything the small guy sells. fair enough.

however, you have to use amazon's "EPOS" system, ie they know exactly what you're selling and not selling and they've not become known for their "customers who bought this also bought this..." emarketing database brilliance for nothing. they are emarketers par excellence, right up there ahead of even tesco. so, they know exactly how well your shop is doing... and if it's doing really well then perhaps it makes sense for them to stock the same products but because of their enormous buying power, they'll get them at a reduced cost and because of the scale of their operations, they'll be able to sell them at a much lower margin than tiny little funky rascal.

hey presto, what seemed like a great little earner for us turns into a potential disaster. they've used us as a profitable testbed for a range of products or a new market segment and when we've proven it one way or the other, they make their decision and become the largest retailer of children's didriksons clothing in the uk instead of us.

it might not happen. they might see it as a bit too niche and just continue to cream 15% off our sales. but it might happen, so are we going to do it? of course we are!!

it's a fantastic opportunity to get our products in front of millions of people. people who we can then develop a personal relationship with. who we can introduce to the world of funky rascal. who we can offer discounts and loyalty promotions to exclusively. who we can pull over to buying directly from our own site and who will tell their friends. so whether our amazon venture lasts 6 months or 6 years, we'd be foolish not to do it.


now there's another angle on this and it's one i learnt again at the big boys - commoditisation of the market. i'm sure you're all smart enough to be ahead of me here but it goes, quite simply, like this.

we have incredible success and then amazon start stocking our products and selling them at a lower price. we then have to respond, selling the same products at a lower price and margin. now, i big competitive markets this ends up with everyone selling at a loss and trying to work out just how to make any money. don't believe me? i saw it in the ATM business in emerging/ evolving markets like india, thailand, indonsesia. markets where it is very difficult to differentiate on added value, USPs, etc. the bottom-line price is king and that's that.

fortunately, we're not in a market like that and we're not selling products like that. but i know that certain market segments and geographies for ncr were incredibly painful to do business in. i don't see this getting to that stage. we do sell premium quality products (not saying ncr's ATMs were rubbish) but the sector of that market that crashed was the most basic cash dispense only ATM.

so i'm making a call on this one, knowing what could happen but not expecting it to be anything like as bad as i've seen. and it may never happen, let's face it. however, as a wise man once said, he who sups with the devil should have a long spoon. i'm going to make sure ours is bargepole-long ;-)

tight as a gnat's...

business is picking up but NOT ENOUGH!!!


ok, i'll pipe down, but it's a tough time. we've gone into overload on offers. 10% off here, 15% off there, now a prize draw, next a loyalty card... but that's retail life. what i'm realising is that there is a reason certain 3 and 4 letter high street brands can offer these prices all the time: because their inital prices are so pumped up.

those 3-letter and 4-letter clothing retailers, pump up their prices, so they can appear to offer great deals. we won't do that (i'd say we can't but we could... however, we won't!). but we also have far better clothing, so the gloves are off... we had a member of staff of the 4-letter retailer in the shop in mid-winter who said that their own winter jacket was rubbish, so she came to us. we didn't see her for months until she came back this week to buy some more of our outdoor clothing. that, hopefully, speaks volumes. brill!!

and that's what we're about. good quality, practical clothing that's fun, funky, cool and brilliant value for money. i'll not shy away, didriksons and maxomorra offer outstanding value for money. no, they're not the cheapest but then you can buy cheap and buy twice or buy what we've hand-picked and hand it on to the next child/ cousin/ friend... and the next... and...

we don't just believe in our clothing, we love it. pass it on, they'll thank you ;-) www.funkyrascal.co.uk

motivation

a little over 6 months ago, i thoroughly resented my working day stretching to 12 hours, sometimes more. today, i got into the shop at 9.15am and left at a little after 8.30pm and walked home feeling overjoyed. why?

in fact, i was thinking about work from the moment i woke and i'm still doing so now. i'll continue to think about it, make notes (mental or otherwise), read about it and make decisions until i got to bed at around midnight. and do you know what? i'm STILL not getting paid ;-) well, we're not getting paid but that's not the point.

the point is that despite the almost incessent requirement to think about our business in one regard or another, i'm happy to do so. and the reason is that i can see what that will bring. not a lot, financially, in the short-term but in the mid- and long-term i can really see where this "project" is going. it will bring us financial "comfort" but much more than that, it will bring us far greater happiness as 4 people and a cat :-)

it's more than just a project, obviously. this is our future. however, we're trying something new and we're priviledged to be able to do so, i realise that. i now take liam to nursery school in the morning on his scooter. we talk about the plants, flowers, slugs, birds.... that we see on the way. i didn't get that when i drove furiously to work 20 miles away (ok, i enjoyed the cross country drive in my little car). however, i can now enjoy my commute in a way that i think most people simply can't imagine. if liam wants to stop and look at a caterpillar, we do it. if we want to look at all the new azalea blossoms in someone's garden, we do. and then i get to work...

how can you fail to arrive at work enlivened when that has been your commute? we'll take a salary one day soon but in the meantime, i take my recompense in being able to live my life in, i think, the way i'd always wanted to. and that means a lot.

we've made it!!!

it's been quite a tough few weeks but we've finally got all our stock and this morning, our webstore has gone live - http://www.funkyrascal.co.uk/.

even up until tuesday this week, it was a daily rollercoaster of emotion as we received first good, then bad news about our online merchant account and payment gateway. despite allowing plenty of time for the relevant security details to be checked and whatever else it is they do, it still came down to a narrow squeak as to whether we would be able to launch the site today.

however, it all worked out in the end and we even received our major everyday clothing line, maxomorra, yesterday lunchtime. which didn't really help to be honest! something like 2500 items of clothing needing sorted, counted, cross-checked, scanned, inventoried and hung in the shop when all we want to do is get the webstore up. however, since it's critical to the site, it's a good thing it did arrive.

so we're a multi-channel business now. better go and read some more of my new bible, "eMarketing eXcellence", and get on with the next phase...

the light grows stronger...

we now have the most gorgeous wall of colour in the shop! it's all due to one of our key brands and we'd always planned that the shades and hues would co-ordinate but i couldn't have imagined how well. WOW!! yes, it deserves an undeserved double exclamation mark.

as soon as i'd got the colour wall about sorted, our next delivery arrived... it is amazing the power that a bunch of brown boxes can hold over one.i had a reasonable idea what they contained but the excitement in slitting the tape and unveiling a plethora of new colours, shades, patterns, designs... yup, it's just like christmas, it really is!

so we're happier - definitely. we've got confirmation of all the other orders and we can really see the light at the end of what seemed like a very dark tunnel. when we had the UP of pre-xmas it was very hard to take the weeks (and weeks) of mid-winter consumer gloom in small-town cupar. it's still not fab but just putting a couple of new manequins in the window this afternoon got  3 or 4 people into the shop.


we indeniably need the webstore but it is heartening to see some of our regulars reappearing and still new customers discovering our oasis of funky! 2 more weeks of hard work, nailing down the webstore, getting the marketing programs sorted and if we're not buzzing by early april, i'll be one p!ssed off puppy ;-)

the first proper downer...

it's only when you encounter your first really tough period that reality kicks in. and it's only once you can see a glimmer of light that you can begin to put everything into perspective.

it's been a tough few weeks. we knew that jan and feb would be a bit bleak. couple the traditional down period of retail with the continued woe of the british consumer fueled by ken clarke's welcoming words about the "calamitous" outlook for the middle classes of britain and we weren't expecting a great deal. however, despite a bargain sale going on, we bottomed out last week with pitiful sales and a sad lack of any real progress in the prospective appearance of our spring/ summer stock from our 2 key brands.

so we've got no new stock, customers who've seen it all, delayed deliveries and a sudden hiccup in the schedule of our online store. in fact the hiccup was a blessing in disguise. i would have hated to have launched with a bunch of out of season stock - definitely not how to make an impact.

but a week down the line and things are looking brighter... we've got longer to get on with the webstore and make sure it's right (it was always going to be a big push); i've reworked the cashflow and revenue forecasts and we can still survive; and joy of joys, thelimited new stock we have received is going down well and beginning to draw customers back in.

we knew it was never going to be easy but coming from my personal background of big corp relative comfort and with anne's similar experience coupled with the fact it's still really her shop, we were feeling a tad sorry for ourselves. it's our first mini crisis of which i'm sure there will be more and larger ones. but when it's your own business, your own money, your own family then it all means so much more.

an experience to learn from and next season, we'll take all of this into account... and then something else'll bugger things up ;-)

Scary stuff and the woe of deliveries

Our plans are somewhat awry at the moment due to certain key deliveries of Spring/ Summer collections being late. The sale to try and clear as much Autumn/Winter stock and rake in cash to pay for the new seasons' stock has run its course with sales this week as low as any, so we could really, really do with new stock - everyone's waiting for it.

I remarked to a friend the other day that it's not the initial investment which is frightening, it's the second input of cash required to continue growth that can come as a shock. We're in a business which can only grow if you invest more each season. With residual start up costs eating most of the profit from the first few months, that second boost has to come from our savings. I'm very glad that one, I factored this into the forecasts and two, that we have what looks like just enough to invest for growth and have money to live off. Imagine a plane in a dive, pulling up just in time to skim the tree tops, that's our financial forecast over the coming weeks! If we can avoid borrowing anything from the bank I'll be a happy man and we should be able to draw our first salary before the end of the first half of this year.

I think once you've borrowed from a bank, you're no longer in total control of your business, not just financially but mentally. You're working every week with the thought in the back of your mind that a percentage, large or small, of your profits is going straight to the bank. The larger that percentage, the tougher I can imagine it is to motivate yourself, especially as a start up, when the light at the end of the tunnel can seem far enough away at times without added pressure.

So whilst things are a bit out of kilter at the moment, I'm confident that we'll eventually get our new stock, pay for it, and get the webstore going, all in time to pull out of the dive! Because we're different, we're carving our unique space in the plethora of children's clothing retailers and as the new strapline goes - because childhood's too short for pastel shades! Long live Funky Rascal.

Busy, busy, busy

What on earth have I been up to for over a month? It's mid-Feb, the snow's long gone, replaced with the more standard Scottish winter and we're up to our eyes in our webstore project and placing orders with lots of new brands for Spring/Summer and Autumn/ Winter. Isn't it fun placing orders when you don't have to spend the money?

Yes and no. It's fun looking at all the funky clothes and trying to work out what we could, should and will order but it's a lot of hard work trying to make sure we have enough of everything we think we'll need based on 3 or 4 months of trading.

I then need to try and control our enthusiasm by using the projected sales forecasts to tell us how much we need to order in order to hit those targets. And those forecasts are of course based on best guesstimates. By next Autumn, we'll be coming up to our first year in business. We'll also have opened a webstore (coming in March), so the growth of that also needs to be factored in. It's all a tad nerve-wracking!

One very pleasing thing is that much of our Autumn/Winter stock from this year is almost depleted, so by some miracle of good planning, Anne managed to get many of our first orders (based on absolutely no experience!) pretty much spot on. It means we've got a good amount of the cash flow required to pay for the Spring/Summer orders which are all arriving in the next few weeks.

It's now that I realise that quitting big corp wasn't so much a pleasantry (although it certainly was!) but a necessity. We're both fully occupied running the business, our children, our house and our lives. I just can't see how Anne would have managed everything if I'd continued to work and travel as I was. Phew!! Good thing we made the right decision.

Another bonus is that I've become much more domesticated! For those who know me, that may come as a shock. I've always been pretty meticulous about "my" kitchen as I insist on doing most of the cooking but I've discovered the joys of laundry, hoovering, etc... very post-modern, haha!

Let's see how we get on with the next few weeks. There's a lot going on and a lot more money going out but there a small light with the faint word "salary" on it at the end of the tunnel. And at least the tunnel is our own creation and lined with bright, funky clothing!

A very happy New Year to you all...

oh so nice to have a break...
but onwards and hopefully upwards.

firstly, let me wish you a contented, happy and, if you're good, a prosperous 2011!

we've just had a look at the 2011/12 winter collection from our major winter gear supplier and it's made us feel a bit odd, to be honest. we're in the middle of the earliest, coldest and toughest winter in scotland on record and it's only early january. we've seen -10C as a maximum daytime temperature in cupar. cupar! we're a stone's throw from the ever-warm east neuk of fife, yet i have never, ever seen temperatures like that outside the highlands. bbrrrrrrr

but we're into 2011 now and all that it holds for us. we're hyper-excited! online store, agentship, well-loved local children's clothing store... oh, did i say "agent"? almost skipped over that one... ;-) oh, and online store...

but time for a bit of reality. if you're going to ditch the corporate life, here are 3 big lessons/ warnings...

1) it's not cheap - in fact, it's very expensive. you're going to have to put £20k+ into the set up. we live in the ar$e end of the UK but still, a nice corner of scotland. refitting a shop, buying stock and all the other expenses will reach at least this level, minimum.

2) it's not cheap - not again! yup, more money. you won't make enough money to live on in the first year. you'll need to balance the cash you have coming in against the amount of stock you need to keep buying. in the first 6 months (and probably 12 or 18) you will have to live off either your savings or a bank loan or both.

3) it's not cheap... ... ... boring isn't it? but your cashflow is critical (point 2 but from another perspective). if you don't sell enough, you won't have the cash to buy the next load of stock... plan ahead and always low-ball your turnover by a big degree. it's not sandbagging when it's your own business!

don't get me wrong. i LOVE what anne and i are doing, we have a great vision and we're making it happen but if you need to borrow a lot of of money to do it, at the moment, don't do it! the bank will shaft you on interest; they'll view you as a massive risk and of all their assets, you will be the first one they pull the plug on.

you need to be able to set up and cover your own personal costs for about 12 months WITHOUT relying on a tossing bank. they're awful mercenaries and they'll not wince as they strip you and your family of every last penny and then charge you interest and fees on that.

but, if you've the will, the finance and the sheer bloody-minded determination (for those who know anne, you may recognize some characteristics!), then there is NOTHING like breaking out on your own.

oh, that "agent" thing... one of our suppliers has asked to act as their agent for the UK. another string to the bow and given the feedback and sales of their clothes, we're delighted.

so, wishing you a fab 2011 and keep your eyes on the website in the next 2 months for the online store to appear.

always think laterally, never linearly!

g