Summer Reflections. Part 2.

When we launched Gladstone / Hellen we decided that we’d never do Sales, promotions or discounts. My friend Julian, who runs one of Britain’s biggest retailers and for whom I have the greatest respect in all possible ways, told me that he admired the stance but that we were creating a rod for our own backs and would probably end up with loads of unsold stock.

He’s right and he’s wrong and here’s why.

First discounts, Sales and promotions.

I wrote a few months ago that when we had Pedlars we relied on Sales, but that I hated them. We would have a terrific run up to, say, Christmas. But then on Boxing Day we’d launch the Sale which would result in an avalanche of purchases. And then three days later that avalanche would stall. Cue deeper discounts. And on and on. I found it truly depressing.

My inbox is full of deep discounts at the moment, and one company Dr*k*s, that I admire on so many levels, is having what must be its third ‘Archive Sale’ of 2025. Gawd, it’s depressing; rooms full of unsold stuff, piled high, sold cheap. In having these sales, the company is showing us the true value of its clothes; that’s a fact, whichever way they dress it.

There is no way back.

It’s the same with promotions (one week only, for Mother’s Day, for our top customers, blah blah frigging blah). And those 10% off your first purchase things. Now, I get it, companies want your email address and that that discount is the cost of that acquisition.

And I completely get that we all like a bargain. I certainly do.

But my question is whether it is, in fact, a bargain. Is price the main driver? Or is it something deeper? Is this just driving us to buy crap we don’t need?

Anyway.

Back to Julian’s point that we may be mad in not having Sales or whatever. Perhaps we are and one day I will have to make a U-turn.

Either way, we feel, deeply, that our way of doing business is worth a try. I have been self-employed since 1989 and have started lots of small businesses. Some have worked, some haven’t, some have been disasters. I am getting wiser, if only by small degrees and in fits and starts and I do know that this might not work.

But we all three feel a messianic zeal to try a different way of doing business and while our no discount model is a part of that, the real core is to produce great products. That way we can really talk about value and not price.

This first year has been one of rapid learning and we have by no means got all of the products right yet; a lot have been abandoned, often at considerable expense, after sampling. Sampling is expensive and often accounts, at least for a small company like ours, as a large part of the product’s final cost.

Then there is a particular challenge to trying to make everything in one country, not least of all because through our previous business we made things in many different countries. So, we have to build lots of new relationships with manufacturers, even when we know people really well who make ceramics in Portugal, and with whom we made thousands of products, we have to find someone new in the UK.

The other way to build a business that doesn’t rely on discounts is, of course, to get the quantity of each product right, to make small runs. This is really hard because, understandably, all manufacturers of scale have minimums and these minimums are pretty high for a small company. So, our mission for 2026 is to start to build our own small manufacturing units. By small, I actually mean tiny. We think it can be done.

Anyway, by October we will have a large collection of new stuff including more homewares, jumpers, a fantastic jacket, bags (I hope) and more.

Thank you for your support so far. We know all of you by name and we value your support in ways that you can hardly imagine. We really do. This isn’t easy but it is fun and everything we do is borne absolutely of love and passion, which we hope shows.