Jodie Hatton
Retail Interview:
The Alphabet Gift Shop
‘We’re warriors, not worriers!’
With two beautiful gift shops in Burton-on-Trent and the Derbyshire village of Mickleover, The Alphabet Gift Shop has had its busiest year ever for online sales, but now can’t wait to open the doors of the bricks and mortar stores to welcome its customers back. We catch up with general manager Jodie Hatton to learn how the team are determined to survive and thrive Jodie, what’s the story behind the business? I’m Jodie – the general manager of The Alphabet Gift Shop. We have two gift shops with coffee shops. We specialise in personalised products, so our Burton shop has a design studio above it too. I am very lucky to work for and alongside a very inspiring boss lady – Sue! She started the business back in 1996 from her dining room table, designing and manufacturing fleece jumpers worked under the name ‘Sweaty Sue’s’ By 2008 her house was quite literally bursting at the seams, and she moved the business to Mickleover and it became The Alphabet Gift Shop as it’s known today. As the business grew, the design and production side moved to a different location so the gift shop could expand. In 2013 Sue was ready for The Alphabet
Gift Shop to have a sister store and set up shop (and coffee shop) in Burton-onTrent, with the design studio upstairs. Since then, we have taken over the unit next door to make the coffee shop and studio space bigger at Burton, and even managed to squeeze a coffee shop in at the Mickleover shop too. How have the various lockdowns and restrictions been for you? As for all small businesses, the lockdowns and restrictions have been challenging. We were very lucky to already have an established online sales department, selling through our own website along with Not On The High Street, Etsy, Amazon Handmade, Silk Fred and Trouva. For the bricks and mortar gift shops, not having a date to work towards is tricky bring on Boris’ road map! – as it’s difficult
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