talking shop
Clifton and Victoria are looking forward to welcoming customers
April is the month set for retailers to open their doors. We spoke to a number of independents to find out their thoughts on business moving forward.
Victoria Hampson
Mohammed Patel
NATURAL BABY SHOWER
KIDDIES KINGDOM
Are you feeling positive and prepared to be able to re-open your doors in April? Yes absolutely. We are extremely excited to be able to open our doors and interact with the public once again, as we have missed meeting our lovely customers face to face and assisting them personally on their journey towards parenting. We are proud of how quickly and efficiently we adapted during the pandemic, introducing virtual appointments to ensure we can still keep in touch and do what we do best. However, allowing people to physically visit the store once again will be a rewarding experience, as we appreciate the need to be able to touch and feel products first-hand.
Have you made any changes in-store that you feel will be welcomed by your customers? Our virtual appointments have given us the opportunity to reach out to both existing parents and parents-to-be all around the globe. Over the past year we have served customers from Pakistan, Turkey and beyond, as well as continuing to deliver to our loyal customer base here in the UK. Because of this success, we will be keeping the virtual booking system in place to ensure we can support those not able to visit our flagship showroom. To remain Covid-safe, we will be moving forward with appointment-only visits, to ensure the utmost safety of our customers. Visually, we may look a little different too. Whilst our doors were closed, we took this time as an opportunity to update all of our displays to ensure we have the most recent 2021 collections out on display.
Do you feel that consumers have altered the way they shop during the lockdown period that might be here to stay? Absolutely. I anticipate that online shopping will continue to boom across all industries over the next few years. Consumers who were previously more of a ‘pro high street’ shopper, will have converted to become online shoppers, having become habitual to this due to the lockdown. Having said this, we predict that expecting parents will still want to experience everything ‘special’ about having a baby and one of those things is going to a store to buy your baby’s products.
Are you feeling positive and prepared to be able to re-open your doors in April? Yes. We can’t wait to open our doors again to our lovely customers and be able to help them again in person. The team is feeling super excited to get the store open again, but we will of course be doing it in a safe way and following all government guidelines to ensure our store is a safe space for our customers and staff.
Have you made any changes in-store that you feel will be welcomed by your customers? Yes, lots. The store may have been closed, but we have been working hard behind the scenes on some exciting renovations to our store. We recently hired a new store manager and she has bringing all our plans to life. We have refurbished our store with brand new displays, knocked down walls to create a bigger shop floor for more space for product and demo’s, plus we have extended our nursery show room so we can fit it even more inspiration nursery set ups. We can’t wait to welcome our customers back through our doors and for them see the amazing changes we have made during lockdown.
Do you feel that consumers have altered the way they shop during the lockdown period that might be here to stay? With stores being shut parents turned to the internet for research and to get all their questions answered. We worked hard to help provide our customers with lots of helpful resources, information and advice through our online website to fill the gap. We can see the trend definitely continuing of parents researching initially online, before heading to the store to make their final decision, so we will continue to keep creating and providing parents with all the information they need online too.
Callum Craig
SAMUEL JOHNSTON BABY
Are you feeling positive and prepared to be able to re-open your doors in April? We are looking forward to reopening our store and feel, especially with the brighter days, that people will be keen to get out and about again. Interestingly, because of Brexit, and the Northern Ireland protocol, Samuel Johnston Baby is in a unique and privileged position to service all Ireland and UK unfettered. Have you made any changes in-store that you feel will be welcomed by your customers? We have made some changes and are allowing a maximum of eight couples in the showroom at any one time. We have multiple sanitising units, regular wipe downs and social distancing. We are excited about improving how we present our top brands including customer favourites such as iCandy, Cybex, Noordi, Egg, 12
nursery today
Silvercross and JANE. We also have a new furniture area featuring Cocoon, a new range of sustainable 4-in-1 baby furniture.
Do you feel that consumers have altered the way they shop during the lockdown period that might be here to stay? For sure customers have altered the way they shop and have been forced to go online. That means we have had to up our game in terms of how we present products. We have started a blog and added a Car Seat Buying Guide and a Pram Buying Guide to our homepage. But with the easing of lockdown we are predicting, and very much looking forward to, the rush back to the showroom and have employed another two members of staff in anticipation of busier days ahead!’
