The Resilient Retail Game Plan - retail insights, retail trends and best practices

If you’re running a small product business and are feeling a bit squeezed for cash flow right now, you’re not alone! August and September are traditional, well-established pinch points in the retail industry calendar. So, whether you’re coming up a bit short due to putting in your orders for this coming Christmas or perhaps an unexpected bill has landed on your desk, in episode 160 of The Resilien...

From decreased footfall to financial constraints, retailers across the board continue to be hit hard in the wake of not only the Covid-19 Pandemic but the ongoing cost of living crisis as well. It is tough out there - it may even be one of the most challenging periods experienced in retail history, but as smaller independent businesses, we have something to be grateful for that the industry giants...

When you start and run your own business it’s often not long before you realise you might need an extra pair of hands. Whether you’re struggling with picking and packing in those busy sales seasons or fumbling through your finances, it’s important to recognise how best to support the growth of your business. In episode 158 of The Resilient Retail Game Plan, I speak to Helen Dukes, founder of music...

In episode 157 of The Resilient Retail Game Plan, I speak to Cally Russell, CEO and Co-founder of waste-free clothing brand ‘This Is Unfolded’, supporting children’s education and paying garment workers better wages.  Cally inarguably posits that fast fashion and current retail models are killing the planet - but that they also create a bland customer experience. To change a global business model...

  Trying to increase a customer's average spend or basket size can be tricky. With a lot of focus across e-commerce on the pre-purchase experience, brands can easily fall into the trap of frustrating, and even losing their prospective customers with annoying pop-ups and offers that potentially cheapen their brand. In episode 156 of The Resilient Retail Game Plan, I speak to Ruth Even Haim, the COO...

No business has shaped online retail, perhaps all retail, the way that Amazon has. Since its founding in 1994, the e-commerce giant has grown to become one of the most influential economic and cultural forces in the world, forever changing the way that we shop and sell.  The idea then of trying to build a business on such a huge, busy and complex marketplace might seem a bit daunting at first, but...

When it comes to retail it’s never too early to start talking about Christmas! In fact, if you’ve left it this long without considering the big day you might even be too late to take advantage of some of the best ways to prepare your business for the dependably lucrative Q4 sales period. The more work you can do now to get you and your business ready for the festive season, the smoother it’ll all...

In episode 153 of The Resilient Retail Game Plan, I speak to Sabira Silcock of sustainable jewellery brand, SKEN Studios. Handmade in Manchester, Sabira produces fun and playful jewellery with personality, as well as running workshops and creating more bespoke pieces. Today she shares her journey from designer/maker to brand-builder, the story behind the rapid growth of SKEN Studios and the lesson...

A lot of small product business founders have likely experienced that same exciting moment of thinking or feeling that what may have started as a hobby or a side hustle is starting to turn into something more! Taking your ideas, personal projects, or businesses to the next level does take a lot of work and requires a good degree of self-belief - what it requires is getting serious about your inten...

Whether you’re someone who’s just started a creative product business and are chasing that first sale or whether you’re an experienced founder trying to leverage even greater growth for your long-running and established brand, something we all share in common is that we all want to experience success, in its many shapes and forms. From social media to shop windows, the popularity and success of a...

“How do I run a promotion that doesn’t damage my brand?” is a question I get asked all the time. It’s a valid concern, evidenced no better than by what my friend and fashion brand consultant Elizabeth Stiles calls “The Gap Trap” - where the constant over-promoting and discounting of stock at the famous clothing retailer culminated in the admittedly flagging brand having to shut up shop in the UK....

As you’ve undoubtedly heard me say before, the best sales strategy is a great product strategy. Everything works better for you and your business when your audience and customers are excited about your product - they’ll buy more, they’ll tend to convert at a better rate on your website and they’ll tell more people about your brand. So if you are feeling stuck, or find yourself in a bit of a rut it...

Artificial intelligence certainly is a hot topic at the moment! There’s a lot of heady discourse flying back and forth in the news, as well as concerns about its use (or misuse) in specific contexts. Still, I think it’s worth remembering that AI, in the form of algorithmic and machine learning applications like Google Maps, has existed and been in use for a long time. It’s the advent of platforms...

It’s a fact of running a small product business that some days are better than others. When you spend so much time and put so much passion into creating or curating your line of products, it can feel deeply demoralising when your sales numbers suddenly drop or fail to materialise for that item you had such high hopes for. This is often when the ‘cycle of doom’ starts to spin and whir and where in...

It probably holds true that many small product business owners dream of the day that they can hand their notice in at work and dedicate themselves to their own businesses full-time. It’s an audacious goal and certainly isn’t going to happen overnight (in most cases!) but it’s completely possible as my guest today demonstrates. In episode 146 of The Resilient Retail Game Plan, I speak to children’s...

Celebrations are in order! May is not only the month of my birthday but it also marks the third anniversary of The Resilient Retail Club. When I started the business back in 2020, I never set out to create a membership, but instead planned to offer courses, starting with my ‘Grow Your Sales’ course back when I used to operate as ‘Future Retail’. But with the challenges presented by COVID and the s...

With Easter not long behind us, the next big calendar event on the horizon is Father’s Day. Whilst the dad-centric holiday sees lower spending on average than Mother's Day, it’s still a major event in hospitality and retail. Now, some of you may be looking at your range of products and thinking where does my business fit into Fathers Day? It’s true that not every small product business will be sui...

The impact of mindset on your business truly cannot be underestimated, it affects everything we do as small business owners, from the way that we interact with our customers and staff to how we show up on social media and market our products. Too often when we lose confidence in ourselves, and potentially in our business, we tend to take less action and get stuck in what I call the 'cycle of doom'...

In episode 142 of The Resilient Retail Game Plan, I wrap up my short series about building your small business on a budget with my good friend and fashion brand consultant Elizabeth Stiles. Elizabeth and I share a lot of background and experience when it comes to the retail industry and understand the vital importance of sales strategy and skills when it comes to growing a business and that if sma...

In the fourth episode of my mini-series of discussions about building your business on a budget, I speak to Jayne Lasley, founder of “Fairlie Curved”. Originally started as a styling page on Instagram, Jayne took a modest £500 after losing her job in lockdown to attempt to create a fuller-bust clothing line - an idea informed by her own experiences of someone with a 30HH bust and an idea that had...

In the third of my mini-series of discussions about building your business on a budget, I speak to Steph Douglas, founder of the thoughtful gifting company “Don’t Buy Her Flowers”. Steph started her small business back in 2014 after she was inundated with bouquets of flowers following the birth of her first child - although wonderfully well-meant, flowers just felt like just another thing for Step...

In the second of my series of discussions about building your business on a budget, I speak to Rebecca Gibbions of the boutique jewellery brand, ‘Last Night I Dreamt’. After putting a successful career in television production on hold to raise a family, Rebecca felt a bit adrift until an opportunity to open a jewellery shop in her home of Southwell, Nottingham, ignited an excitement in her she had...

Today’s podcast marks the first in a series of discussions about building your business on a budget and in episode 138 of The Resilient Retail Game Plan I speak with Laura Schofield, the founder of Otto and Ivy, a specialist shoe brand, who incredibly had never spent a penny on marketing until the third year of running her business. Having initially cultivated a career in television presenting, sh...

Product photography has changed a lot since the days of a single image on a white background in a 500-page catalogue. As the advertising and marketing worlds have evolved, we’ve seen increasing complexity in the way businesses present their products to their audience, such as through multi-layered storytelling and creating cultural context around their products, and with the continuing growth of o...

So, the inspiration for today’s episode came out of a conversation I was having with fashion brand consultant, Elizabeth Stiles. We chat often over WhatsApp, sometimes about the things that drive us crazy about small businesses - and on this occasion we both found ourselves bemoaning the recent trend of founders posting negatively framed content about their businesses. Now, this episode is definit...