When lockdown started we had a few strategies. Initially sales online flattened, I understand this happened to most of the non essential online businesses. If the truth be told it very quickly picked up and we have been very busy online. But it’s a different busy as we are dealing with very few businesses and 95 per cent of orders have been with the Great British Public. In fact, when panic stations set in around the end of March my web designers, who are also my business gurus, told us to stay calm and that orders will come back swiftly. And that’s our excuse for not keeping the blog running through the pandemic. It’s now nearly 50 days and today is the Sunday of the VE Weekend when Mr Johnson will be making announcements to ease the lockdown. We are not so sure. With thanks to all our online customers we are very fortunate in that we can perhaps stay closed longer and wait for more positive data to come back from the Government. That’s probably how best to play this one out – no rush. The birds are singing, we have had time to talk to neighbours and some improvements around the house have been carried out but nowhere near as much as we thought. On many days we have just read books and slowed life down a little.
We live in semi rural Dorset and occasionally a plane will use the flight path close to us to descent in to Bournemouth Airport ( currently stacking British Airways aircraft ). This morning as we were getting up we heard the engines close by of what sounded like a 747. We rushed out on to the balcony to see what was flying in, we are taking a lot more interest these last few weeks as it’s usually military planes but up above our house in a turn towards Bournemouth a 747 was flying low. Its’ livery was red, a huge heart followed by the letters NHS and then a red painted tail. Lisa has an app on her phone identifying the flight route. This plane had taken off 10 hours ago from a city in Northern China – no doubt full up with PPE equipment. How the world has changed it a couple of months. Our best wishes to all our customers. Keep safe everyone and we are very grateful for your custom, kindness and time.
Passing by quicker than we all thought – we really didn’t know we had so many seashells! We keep some stock in a stable block and in the deepest corners found some great specimens. Please e mail us if you want to see some pictures of bargain seashells which we have in good numbers. The road outside remains quiet. On our eveining drive to Royal Mail I’m surprised, with so few cars on the road, how much overtaking and speeding there is. Luckily we don’t have much air pollution in Dorset but having said that BA have just parked up half their fleet at Bournemouth Airport – BA Jumbos in the Dorset sky was a rare thing! But the evening light seems different – more clarity and there are so many bees out and about. We even met our fist frog out of hibernation in our little clay pond yesterday. We have some seashell orders to do today and very grateful for them too.
Things moving at a rapid pace. We took a delivery from DPD today to be told by the driver that they may close in a week as all businesses are temporarily closing and there is not enough work. This is true of some of our importers/wholesalers who are closing down their warehouses due to lack of orders. Those wholesalers that have online retail businesses themselves strangely have not closed the retail side of their operations which certainly is a kick in the teeth for their retail customers who have been loyal and supportive to them. We are pleased to say that we enter this period with very high stock levels and should comfortably get through the next three weeks of lockdown. The Chancellor has today offered grants to the self employed. Most retail shop owners trade as limited companies so it looks as though the business rates concessions and grants depending on rateable values will be the only help we will get. Whilst it is generous we feel it will still lead to many more seasonal retail businesses closing shop after the Summer. Easter is a crucial trading period after the long Winter and all will be closed. It will be extremely difficult for these businesses to have turned a profit by the end of the Summer holidays and they won’t hang around and choose to go in to debt through the long Winter. Here’s a picture of one of our 2020 top sellers that we have plenty of to dispatch!
