01 January 0001
The team at Lovely Libby's has won the Best Non-Specialist Retailer Of Gifts award despite rocky lockdown start
Lovely Libby has been a Bira member for over 10 years and we're proud to congratulate them on their win, especially against a big high street retailer Oliver Bonas.
Our CEO, Andrew Goodacre said: "It is always fantastic news when independent retailers and members win prestigious awards. These awards highlight those retail owners who stand out from the crowd through hard work and creativity. The owners would also say that their staff and customers also make a huge contribution to the success of the shop and winning any award reflects a major team effort."
Read Libby Holden's story below:
"My name is Libby Holden, and I own a local business specialising in giftware, interiors and fashion based in Rayleigh, Essex. I’m proud to say that we recently received the accolade of “Best Non-Specialist Retailer of Gifts” in the UK at the 2022 Greats Gift Retailer Awards. How amazing is that?! Even more so when you consider that we were up against major heavyweight retailers such as Oliver Bonas! As a young woman starting an enterprise, I wanted to share my story with you and your readers to hopefully inspire them to follow their ambitions, and to most importantly, never give up.
Having bought the shop in 2019, aged 28 after a career in the entertainment business, I was only just finding my feet when the pandemic hit. That was definitely a shock to the system for us all! 2 of my staff (Georgia and Hannah, who at the time were aged 22 and 18) and I had to completely transform our way of working and be creative in how we could continue to interact with our customers and keep the business afloat. And as our recent win reflects, I think we did an alright job!
I won’t lie, there were times when I shut myself in the stockroom crying - the different tiers that Boris was announcing certainly weren’t the only tears around! I had no idea whether the business would survive, and if people would have the money or inclination to purchase anything from us during not lockdowns. So my team and I started to get creative...
With no website, we began simply by offering a free local delivery service (which ended up encompassing the length and breadth of Essex and Greater London!), selling through Facebook and Instagram. In fact, we ended up with customers as far afield as Scotland, but obviously, there wasn’t enough time in the day to drive there! So, we took the entire business online and started selling through live videos to ensure we reached our new and ever-growing customer base, whatever their location. On these live streams, we would show all things new in the shop - from home interiors, to mini fashion hauls in the boutique, culminating in our now infamous prosecco “Friday Night Lives”, for which we reached the final 6 contestants nominated for the “Best Retailer Initiative” award throughout the UK at The Greats 2022.
These live streams started off not just as a means to keep the business afloat, but also to keep our spirits high during a period of immense isolation. We had no idea that it would also have the same effect on our customers! We invited them to join in virtually with a tipple of their choice, and just enjoy a 20-minute break from reality. We established a direct means of communication with our customers despite the physical restrictions, and created an online community hub, achieving a massive 10,000 followers on Instagram. This is something customers continually praise us for online and in-person even to this day, not only for enabling people to buy from a “non-essential” shop from the safety of their own homes but also for keeping spirits high with our camaraderie, humour, and ability not to take ourselves too seriously!
The pandemic transformed my business completely from what I thought it would be when I first started out. My vision didn’t include going back to my showbiz days and putting on virtual gigs for my customers, or playing the fool and jumping around for reels to keep up with the ever-changing Instagram trends. But now, I wouldn’t have it any other way. My customers are like friends, no matter where they are based, and it makes it all the more rewarding that we have become an essential “non-essential” shop to those who enabled us to survive these past few years."
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