blog New Year and a New Lockdown
Tom Carter, Potters of Hockley, looks back at 2020 and how the pandemic continues to effect the housewares industry.
C
hristmas now seems a long memory ago. One minute we were seeing our families then at the last
minute we were in tier 4 and all the plans had gone out the window! We had far too much food in the house
and even now I still have presents tucked in the bottom of the wardrobe! Suddenly we all were rushing out for turkeys as like many I don’t spend Christmas Day at home but with my dad. I reckon people will be having a Christmas dinner in the middle of the summer, if we can by then. In November I moved house and was hoping my family would be able to visit at Christmas and see what I have spent all my money on! Sadly this will wait and maybe at Easter they can come over. Though what a year to move house! One minute we were about to buy a house and looking to exchange in the summer, then it all fell through due to the first lockdown. Strange how these things happen as the house we finally purchased we absolutely love more than the one we could have been in and it was cheaper! Three days off over Christmas felt like a
holiday to me. I had worked 32 days in a row and got to the stage that I had no idea what day, month or year it was, let alone what area or house I lived in! The joke is, by Boxing Day I was bored and decided to clean all the carpets upstairs! Overall it was a very good year for us as a business. Online was just incredible and even as I write this on a very wet Saturday at the end of January the sales are still flooding through. I’m so thankful we had the website throughout this time and to see this flourish has been one bright light at a dark time. It did seem as the public were just buying anything they could get their hands on and even if we had an appalling colour KitchenAid it would have sold! It is desperately sad to see the physical Cookshop shut at different times over the year. Other fellow cookshops owners must know how upsetting it is to not be able to welcome customers in and see all the wonderful displays and products. We do love all the stories of how other shops have diversified over the months gone by and we wish everyone the best when we are allowed to open again.
Usually now Al and I would be so excited for Spring Fair and all the inspirational displays and newness. Looks like it will
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housewareslive.net
be a lot of Zoom calls over the next few weeks which is great to catch up with people in the industry we miss. I don’t like how I always look like a mess on these calls, can’t be a great sight for anyone! I just hope with the
Lockdown, container issues and manufacturing problems there will still be products to get excited about and price increases aren’t too harsh. So where will we be come Spring? Hopefully safe, healthy, vaccinated and welcoming customers back into our shops and family and friends back into our homes.
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HousewaresLive.net •
twitter.com/Housewaresnews January/February 2021
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