Serendipity has a variety of definitions, but to me it means, To come across something pleasurable by chance or a fortunate occurance. Both defined what I wanted my shop to stand for...
To own a gift and card shop was a dream I had held onto for many years, so when I was made redundant in Dec 2007 I decided this was my now or never opportunity to realise the dream and so I set about creating Serendipity and the shop opened on 26th May 2008..
I had, up until being made redundant, worked as a Product Manager for Hallmark Cards Wholesale division and had been in this role for over 11 years. It was a job I adored and it would be an understatement to say I was devastated at the redundancy - but with a pending recession the business had no choice but to let 20% of it's workforce go...and that included me.
The job had given me many great experiences and opportunities, and had shown me so many aspect to running a business that opening my own business didn't really faze me too much.
I had been responsible for multi million pound ranges of cards, managing the cards throughout their "life" from working with a Design Manager to concept the card design, working with artists who turned the concept into a finished piece of artwork, working with pre production to ensure everything was correct for print, working with the Far East as our ranges were printed in China with a production office in Hong Kong, working with the internal sales team and external sales reps to ensure that the ranges were selling, through to monitoring sales and doing sales analysis to learn more about the products and market place needs..so all in all at every stage of the cards life I was responsible for it.
The job had also given me the amazing opportunity to go to Hong Kong and China twice - experiences that I will discuss in more detail at a later date...
So I'm sure you will agree with me that I know cards...whilst gifts on the other hand was quite a new experience to me...but with the help of a couple of good trade fairs and talking to relevant people I gained great insight into the gift world
I knew almost instantly which shop I was interested in, and in the new year I made an appointment to go and view 161-163 Burnley Road, Padiham...It was a large, double fronted shop with a short stay parking bay right out side the front door..it was perfect
It needed quite a lot of work doing to it - I got the keys on 2nd May and the following 3 weeks were very full on - the shop needed to be transformed as the walls were peach, the woodwork was burgundy and the smelly carpet was faded pink - yes it was as gross as it sounds!
But the 3 weeks of hard work paid off and when I opened she looked like this.
Clean fresh yellow walls with white woodwork, and an amazing sign which just finished the look off
I spent the first year getting to know my business, my customers and my suppliers and then once I felt like I had a good selection of Gifts and Cards I set about moving the business to the next level - I ventured into the world of e-commerce by creating my first website
I had no idea about starting a website, but I also knew I couln't afford to pay for a company to generate one for me - therefore I had to find a means to create one myself.
Through research I came across a brilliant company called CREATE which enable you to make your own website, and with a lot of determination, hard work and late nights I launched www.giftsfromserendipity.com at the end of May 2009 to complement Serendipity's 1st Birthday
Initially I had cards on this website as well as gifts, but I decided a website called Gifts from Serendipity didn't scream out cards...so I created my 2nd website about 6 months ago and of cause I had to call it www.cardsfromserendipity.com
Both websites are going from strength to strength, and I am very proud of what i've achieved so far..but this is only the beginning
Serendipity has evolved so much in it's first 2 years, but it also has so much more to achieve yet..and that is the future...
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