WOW HOUSE
Making a house a home
Fuelled by fizz and fabulous interior design, Elysia Fryer joins Kelly Shackleton and Sophie Harrison for HOUSE Live, a savvy new way of shopping in the virtual world
got, and we let them know if they got there first. There’s quite a bit of admin at the moment while we’re prepping our new website, but we honestly didn’t expect it to get this big. It gives us a bit of a buzz though. Kelly: We just have fun with it. Some of our customers have been tuning in from day one and they’ve really got to know us. Sophie: So then Christmas happened and we stopped for a little while as we reopened the shop, but people were desperate for us to carry on. It has become a big event in some of our customers’ monthly calendars. Everyone just enjoys sitting down with a glass of fizz while we catch-up about what we’ve been up to as we talk through products and juggle a glass of wine - or two! I get told off for swearing all of the time; we are just being ourselves, two best friends having a bit of banter and swooning over interior products. It never feels like work. Kelly: The following day we switch from virtual shopping hosts to delivery girls, but it’s all just so much fun and we love getting to know our customers. It’s even better now that shoppers can pop in and see us in the shop. We have created a real sense of community, and I think it’s exactly what we all need at the moment. People have even started paying a bit of extra cash into the account with a little note saying ‘Buy a bottle of fizz on us’. On Valentine’s Day, we had hundreds of flowers gifted from customers. It’s amazing! You have created something really special.... an online shopping experience but with a personal touch - and a bit of fun thrown in for good measure. Is this what you intended? Sophie: Definitely, but it happened very organically. The high street is massively changing, so I think people are getting used to shopping online, pandemic or no pandemic - but they’re missing that social interaction. HOUSE Live combines the two, and hopefully creates a really unique and entertaining experience for customers. Kelly: We let people into our lives - we chat to them about our personal lives just as much as we talk through the products. It’s like getting together with all of your mates. People are buying into us as well as the shop, which is great. It’s so important to have a face to the business, particularly during times like these - it’s got to have that human aspect.
Born from a love for lovely stuff, Kelly and Sophie pivoted during the pandemic to create the ultimate online shopping experience, where the good times come first. Kelly and Sophie are the bubbly brains behind HOUSE Interiors, a much-loved homeware store in Thirsk, North Yorkshire. When the pandemic hit and the pair were forced to pivot their business, they put their heads together to come up with something new and exciting. Cue HOUSE Live - a feel-good corner of the internet bringing beautiful interiors and community cheer. As the pair get back to business in the Thirsk store, they continue to bring beautiful interiors to customers via their monthly Facebook live streams. Luxe joins the party... First of all, can you give us a bit of background about HOUSE? Kelly: Pre-COVID, Soph wasn’t involved in the business, it was just me. I was in my sixth year at our gorgeous interiors shop
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in Thirsk. Back in November, Soph decided to get on board and help out as we were tasked with coming up with new ways to share and promote our offering. Sophie: I was on maternity leave last year, so I would always pop in and help out, but when Kel was forced to close because of the pandemic, we put our heads together to have a little think about how she could start to shift some stock. Kelly: In November, when we went into the second national lockdown, I had a load of Christmas stock. Soph came on board to help us pivot a little bit. Sophie: Traditionally, Kel would host a VIP Christmas Night in the run up to the festivities, but obviously that wasn’t possible because of the lockdown, so we decided we would try out going live on Facebook. This was the beginning of HOUSE Live. The first night we did it, we didn’t have a clue what we were doing, we were just totally winging it. We gathered all of our Christmas stock in the shop and just went live, chatting through the products. We thought, at best, about 20 people would tune in, but 300 people turned up
and we couldn’t believe it! Kelly: Since then, the numbers just skyrocketed and before we knew it we’d created an online community of our own. We sold all of the Christmas stock within weeks. When we reopened just before Christmas, people were asking me, ‘How come the shop isn’t very festive?’ - and it was literally because we’d sold all of the stock in the live shopping streams. Sophie: Suddenly, we were way, way over in terms of Christmas sales from previous years, and we were just having so much fun with it. It was bigger and better than ever before, and the shop was shut! It was just crazy. A lot of people used it as a bit of a night out - an excuse to sit down with a glass of wine and do a bit of festive shopping. What is the format of HOUSE Live? Sophie: We literally just go live on Facebook and talk through all of the products we currently have in stock. People post in the comment box if they want to buy something. At the end of the virtual event, people send us a message with what they think they’ve
How does it feel to know you were able to flourish as a business in the midst of a pandemic, when you were forced to close the shop? Sophie: We knew that we needed to do something to boost the community, not just because of the pandemic, high streets were really starting to struggle before that. Kelly: Thirsk has a great sense of community. People knew us already, my kids go to school here, so people know me from the shop and from the playground. We’ve created a completely new online community, which has allowed us to spread our wings a little, but we also have backing from those people who visit us at the shop. It’s really lovely that we are able to balance between the two and offer something for everyone. What would your advice be to any business owners having to push themselves out of their comfort zones? Kelly: Keep it real, be yourself and do what feels right. We always do our hair and put our makeup on for the live streams, but it’s also important for us to share the ‘real’ us on social media. People understand that the two of us, alongside our amazing yet very
MAY/JUN21
