7 minute read
Retail Interview: not just
University challenge
Natalie Stevens is manager of not just a shop, a retail outlet that supports students and graduates of the University of Arts London. Here she tells us more about its retail offering...
Can you tell us a little about the shop? Not just a shop was launched in 2017 and as well as being a retail shop it exists to support students and graduates from University of Arts London (UAL) who want to run their own product-based businesses; providing related opportunities, supporting their business and production needs, and teaching them about working with retailers.
Run by the Careers and Employability team, we saw a gap in support in this area, and having run a few successful Christmas pop-up shops in the space, we thought it was a great opportunity to turn it into something more permanent.
We are a street-facing, medium-sized space in High Holborn, and with lots of local workers in the area it tends to have its busiest footfall during the lunchtime rush. This allows us to operate as a retail space during peak shopping hours and as an enterprise learning and events environment outside of them. Tell us about your products, makers, illustrators and designers. Not just a shop is the place to discover unique home, fashion, giftware and artwork.
Our makers are University of Arts London (UAL) students and alumni, from across all six University colleges, coming to product design from a wide variety of disciplines.
With this in mind, not just a shop product includes ceramics, illustrated prints, greeting cards, photographic artwork, ceramics, fine art, home textiles, fashion accessories and jewellery. As most of our makers are in the early stage of their career we are often their
first retailer, so pieces are handmade and small batch produced and you won’t find them in many other shops. How do you decide which students’ work goes on sale? The majority of our makers come through an open application process, which happens twice a year, and is selected by a panel of UAL staff and industry experts. We also run student competitions throughout the year and live briefs, supporting students to get their designs turned into commercial products such as notebooks, greetings cards and gift wrap as well as tea towels, aprons and napkins. How does pricing work? We purchase all of our products as any normal retailer would, upfront and at wholesale price in agreement with the maker. Quite a few of our makers have never priced their work for retail before, so we work with them on a oneto-one basis to agree prices. Because makers are often just starting out and hand-producing work in small batches, their costs are quite high and we support them through lower retail margins. We operate a not-for-profit model, so all proceeds are reinvested back into running the shop and supporting students and graduates with their businesses. How is the shop staffed? The shop is managed by a small team of paid staff, both permanent UAL staff and students and graduates employed through the Universities temp agency, Arts Temps. How is trading for you at the moment? We are still on reduced opening hours since the pandemic but sales have improved as the footfall has grown and people have returned
Top 5 bestsellers
• Relax candle by London
Refinery, made with essential oils and soy wax • Cat and Dog tea towels by
Garudio Studiage, always a stiff competition between the two! • Sustainable cork card holders by Mind the Cork in a beautiful bright colours • Flower power single drop earrings by Kam
Creates one of our newest designers • Cats come out on top here,
Emily Nash’s cards are our most popular
to their working and education spaces, so we are excited to be opening more frequently in the lead-up to Christmas. Our online shop is doing really well and widened our customer reach across the country, which is exciting. How do you get word out there - do you use social media, local advertising, word of mouth...? Marketing is key to the success of the shop and we are always trying new methods to spread the word and profile all our makers.
We use social media most days, primarily Instagram (@notjustashopual), to connect with our customers and makers and to share any shop updates.
We also promote our shop using our internal communications at UAL. Usually, word of mouth among UAL staff and our customers is super-effective in converting sales.
Finally, we have a monthly shop newsletter, where we share shop updates, new products, and exciting news to our subscribers. We can track email open rates and conversions using the in-built analytics function on the platform. What’s your demographic? The customers at not just a shop vary from staff and students in the UAL building, to people who work in the area, as well as tourists. Holborn is home to big businesses and law firms, and our customers are often visiting from nearby businesses on their lunch breaks for cards and gifts. You sell both online and in store - how do they differ? As lots of our sales come from UAL staff working in the building as well as those working in the area, our physical shop performs better than our online shop. This is also true of greeting card sales, as those purchasing in the physical store can pop in quickly to purchase a card on their lunch breaks and don’t have to worry about postage costs and time.
However, online sales are growing year on year and the online shop has the advantage of being open 24/7. We offer a click-andcollect service, which has proved popular for our customers working in the area who want to make a purchase outside of shop hours. Tell us more about your commitment to being eco-friendly and how that manifests itself in your shop As a team, we are committed to being as eco-friendly as possible and are continually working to improve our working practices to be more planet conscious. We are working on developing a sustainability policy for the shop.
We are currently phasing out plastic bubble wrap, replacing this with an alternative recyclable paper wrap. All our packaging is recyclable or biodegradable. We also reuse packaging materials where possible.
We encourage our designers to think about the impact of their products and packaging. Many of our greeting cards are plastic-free and fully recyclable.
We also ask about ethics and sustainability in the application process and favour applicants who have considered this as part of their production and business operations. Have you seen the average cost of your products go up - and if so how have you dealt with it? We have noticed a small increase in wholesale costs for our products, but our margins have always been quite low to accommodate and support our makers’ early-stage businesses so this hasn’t yet had a huge impact on us. One of our main aims is to widen our reach and increase support to students from all backgrounds and across all the disciplines taught at the University, so this tends to be more of a focus. What is particularly popular with your customers? Greeting cards are by far the most popular product we sell in store, making up 46% of unit street shops so it is a big draw for our customers.
Greeting cards are also a popular product option for our makers - they are easy to produce and have relatively low production costs and our students and graduates can transfer their unique designs and art works onto them as commercial products.
What challenges have you faced over the past few months and how have you dealt with them? Like many retailers, our challenges have been getting back on our feet after the pandemic and supporting our students and graduate makers through that difficult period as best we can. As central London has become busier again we have been able to open regularly, but footfall is still lower and it is a balancing act between opening hours and optimising turnover. During the pandemic we shifted our focus to online and that continues to grow.
Unlike traditional retailers we are fortunate to have the support of the University, knowing the wider value of the shop to the institution and to our students. Therefore we have channelled our energies into finding new ways to engage and teach students further, and support and employ our makers within our work and offer. If you could choose the cards people sent you - which would you choose to receive for Christmas or birthday or other special occasion? I love cards that have been hand printed or have an extra detail like foiling or scratch and sniff (yes the 90s are still here!), so I would choose either a Crispin Finn card or something by Yes! Paper Goods.
