Member Profile
teaware
Taking our business online
In this article, we hear from AGHA Member and owner of J Style, Jen Idosaka, as she shares her experience of how online sales opportunities have supported J Style to continue business during a global pandemic. In the early stages of the pandemic in March we thought business was over. We had zero orders for two weeks and the exchange rate was dropping in a way that gave us GFC flashbacks. The students we normally employ had gone home to Japan for the university holidays, and they didn’t come back. A container of stock arrived and we had no-one to help unpack it and no-one to sell it to. All of our stockists were suddenly closed and understandably a little nervous about ordering. J Style is a small family run business. We’ve been importing ceramics and giftware from Japan for over 20 years. We live and work in the semi-industrial end of Wollongong. We can see the flames from the steel works at night, but we’re also just two blocks from the beach and golf course. Down our end of town it’s not unusual to live above a warehouse and have a forklift in your backyard. Neighbours call in to borrow our pallet jack, not a cup of sugar. We can work through any lockdown without leaving the building and we’ve invested in a strong wholesale website and online advertising that has already shown good results. Being small and flexible and with the setup we have, we are in a good position to ride out a pandemic.
But if our stockists don’t get through it, neither do we. A few wholesalers in our industry seem to be trying their hand at online retailing. That’s not what we want to do. We’re good at importing, dealing with suppliers in Japan and supporting our stockists in Australia and New Zealand. Our stockists excel at retailing and dealing directly with customers.
When we get enquiries from the public, I send them to a local J Style stockist who can build a real relationship with them. Besides cancelling our buying trips to Japan this year, the hardest thing about the lockdowns is not meeting face to face with our stockists in their stores or at trade fairs. It’s been really difficult to plan our orders for the next 12 months without the usual feedback.
