Drastic Changes Ahead!

At the end of this month it will be 2 years since I opened Serendipity...how ironic is it that on the anniversary of my opening the shop I will be closing the door for the last time!

I sadly made the decision last weekend that I had little choice but to close the shop. It has become un-viable and is costing too much money to keep open.

A while back I had made the decision that I would close the shop at the end of May next year, when my lease was up for renewal, but the decline in sales has resulted in me having to fast track that decision.

So how did it get this bad?
The first 18 months of trading was good (considering we were in recession) and I was pleased with how the business was improving. Then one morning I arrived at the shop to find a council notice posted to the lamppost outside the shop stating that they intended to removed the short stay parking bay from outside the shop and replace it with double yellow lines!!!

The reason for this decision had come about as a result of 1 complaint from a resident of the side street at the top of the block of shops where Serendipity is situated. They had complained that when vehicles are parked in the parking bay they struggle to see traffic coming up the high street...whilst this may be true, if you could see the junction in question you would realise that it is no different to any other side street v's main road junction..it just needs a little common sense driving to exit safely!

Despite a petition of over 600 signatures in supprt of keeping the parking bay and traders attending the hearing at the town hall we lost and the parking bay was removed.
That was in Sept 09 and whilst at first i didn't really notice the decline in sales by about Nov I was really starting to notice it

Whilst I tried to battle on all I saw was a steady decline in my sales to the point where a couple of weeks ago I didn't even take enough to pay the rent let alone any other bills!

I knew the time had come (especially when you consider the summer months are the quietest months in the card/gift trade)that I needed to make a drastic decision.

So, Serendipity the shop is to close at the end of the month!

Don't get me wrong it's not 100% to blame on the parking - the devastating burst at the end of Jan didn't help along with the bad snow in the New Year that resulted in no sales for almost 3 weeks and meant surviving by using the Xmas profits..but the parking has been the largest contributing factor to the shops demise

So what does the future hold for Serendipity & Claire?
I am holding a closing down sale at the shop, with everything currently selling at half price.
Once the shop closes at the end of May I will still be liable to pay the rent on the shop for a further 12months, however I will be saving on all the other overheads which are very high.
I am hoping to negotiate with the landlord to be released sooner from the lease(fingers crossed!)

I will still be running the websites, and ultimately I would love to get both sites generating enough income to allow me to work from home and sell 100% online.
The sites aren't up to this yet, therefore I am looking for a job in the mean time...(let me know if you hear of anything! :-))

So, that's what is happening at Serendipity at the moment, whilst the Bricks & Mortar side of the business is drawing to a close, Serendipity will live on in the form of it's websites - I hope you will support them (and me!)