Hej Hejsan Hallå
How are you doing? My girls are back at school and this is week two. Wow my S1 girl could probably sleep for a week. She is enjoying high school but it is full on, luckily not a lot of homework yet.
When we were in Sweden this summer we went to visit the fantastic Spira of Sweden. We have gotten to know the ladies and the office well and love to visit, and we love seeing all the new designs. They have been part of Spektakulär for many years now, I can not even remember for how long to be honest. But that is a great sign, working with suppliers and building relationships is kind of a very important part of retail. Let me explain, it works like this. A supplier or maker creates a design and then they need to sell it to retailers, people like me and then I do my best to sell it to you our customers.
So I need to build a great relationship with my suppliers as these kind of relationships makes life so much easier and over the years I have said good bye to amazing brands as the people behind the brands has not been interested in a good relationship. I even had a few saying we are too small, not worth it for them. Hmm clearly their loss as we are amazing!
Oh classic me, side-tracked! Anyway, so I get to know the brand and then I believe in their products, I follow the trends and buy it in for the shop and then I need to build a great relationship with you so you want to come and spend your hard earned cash at our shop, and then ideally you want to come back again as well. It is much harder to do this online than in a shop that is for sure! When we open back in 2010 the shop looked so different than when we closed the brick and mortar in 2021. We went from a Swedish look to a colourful and happy Scandi/Nordic look as that was what you wanted. So we found designs you loved and that is how it works.
So the makers need to believe in themselves and create something that I believe will sell in the shop. Finding your niche can be difficult, and at the moment it is tricky as homeware might not be an essential in the current climate.
However what we have noticed is that you still love sending gifts to your loved ones and I love wrapping gifts so that kind of works quite well!
Anyway this was not all why I had on my mind to talk about, but I am getting there. You will never have a conversation with me about one topic, that is for sure, my mind is just full of random stuff and stupid inputs...
Spira of Sweden has the most beautiful collection called Kompisar which is the Swedish word for Friends. And every year they welcome new friends (they also say goodbye to one or two) and this time I have four brand new friends for you but also two returning friends with new background colours which I personally love. They are bold and fun!
And what we love so much about each friend is that each has a name and a little bit about them. Pim for example, the calm looking one loves horror movies, yikes!
These friends come in cushion covers, 50x50 cushion covers that you can buy just as they are. Some of you might have a lot of inners already, but if not, we do sell feather inners as well.
You can invest in a super tote bag that you obviously will bring with you when out and about. Time to say no to plastic and bring this awesome friend with you instead!
And finally toiletry bags, however I would use mine as a pencil case as I more pens than make-up! Or take with you for all the small bits in your bag.
Now head online and explore our friends, maybe you see a design that looks just like you or a friends! A perfect treat that is for sure!
Happy weekend, our little one is away the whole weekend with brownies, she will be knackered on Monday morning but I think she will have so much fun! So it looks quite a nice weekend for us as one wont be home and the other one most likely wont leave her bed!
Charlotte xx