Here’s an update from the team, a bit of show and tell at what’s been happening behind the scenes for the last 4 months. It’s been a busy and messy time for our teams as we closed our shops in December. As a retail business closing our shops is like all the balls being thrown up in the air work wise. Our staff have been amazingly resilient, people who had only ever worked in retail were thrown into an e-commerce business with a lot of new technology and they’ve adapted and learned new skills. I’m both very grateful to them and very proud of the work they’ve done.
The girls from our Ashford store joined the warehouse team in January and for the 3rd time they made the switch to running an e-commerce business. The whole team embraced the challenges that running an online business presents. It has been a massive learning curve for everyone to make that switch and while the road was sometimes bumpy we got there in the end and had a good laugh along the way. As they saying goes ‘every day’s a school day.’ Nicola has been keeping you entertained with her videos, and we’re loving the feedback from you.
This week we began restocking our gorgeous Ashford shop. The girls have been hanging, steaming, sorting and getting everything ready, it’s coming together and we think you’re going to love browsing when we reopen. The girls took the pics above as a before, next week we’ll bring you the after pics when we’re ready to reopen.
Our Gorey team has been our customer service centre for the last 4 months and boy have you kept them busy! Thank you. Lots of our gorgeous customers love a little bit of extra advice about size and fit before they buy. The teams in both shop are experts in describing the fit and fabric of our clothes over the phone. We are discovering new adjectives all the time to convey how something will fit and feel. Julie, Charlotte & Kerri have been creating videos to show you our stock, something that we’ll continue when we reopen.
Because we’re closed, the Gorey shop now resembles a cross between a warehouse and a call centre which is exactly what it is. There’s great excitement in the air as we begin to hang, tidy and merchandise our fab Summer stock and get ready to open our doors again.
Our warehouse has seen huge changes in the last year. We had a small online business before March 2020 with 2 employees. When the shops closed and online was the only show in town, the volume of everything increased. We have more stock, more orders and more team members. Every week has brought some change and one thing we’ve learned in e-commerce is that to grow we must embrace this change and adapt. We’ve been working in 2 strict teams in the warehouse to keep contacts to a minimum and it has been strange leaving handover notes for our colleagues on switch over days rather than seeing them in person. As the shops are getting ready to reopen and the Wardrobe Plus Ashford girls get ready to go back to their shop, we’re recruiting for 2 new staff members to join our team.
All in all it’s been a busy time. I am so grateful for your orders, it means that we can reopen our shops. It means that jobs are secure and that we can add to our numbers. As a small business owner I am forever grateful to the whole team for their adaptability and resilience in what has been a challenging time. I will also be forever grateful to our amazing customers who followed us online and have supported us when we were closed.
Aine & the team
xxxx
