Let's talk about 2024 and the changes we have been making for the upcoming year. All of these changes are listed in cliff notes below for quick transparency. A longer version with more details are below in the same order as the cliff notes.
Cliff notes version:
- New Shopify Theme: More recently produced theme with more features to help us design a better shopping experience.
- Menu Updates: New style section of our shopping menu.
- New Collections: Grandpa Sweaters & Grandma's Wardrobe.
- New drop schedule: Wednesday's at noon.
- Where have we been?: The antique booth took over the business' time and a heart to heart about running a small business.
New Shopify Theme
The entire site has gotten a facelift in terms of the "theme". For those who do not have a Shopify website, a theme is the base design of the website that the website creator can edit. Each theme has their own unique options, and limitations. Our previous theme was very user friendly, and we honestly loved it. Unfortunately, the options to edit the nitty-gritty were limiting. Making it harder to create a smooth shopping experience, with the smaller details being uneditable, and limiting.
For those Shopify users who are curious, the theme we had been previously using is Narrative and the new theme is Origin.
Menu Updates
We have updated the main drop down shopping menu with a section called "Shop by Style". This menu offers various collections by the style of the item (Band Tee, Harley, etc.). The change leaves the "Shop" section to be for categories by type of item only (T-shirt, Sweater, etc.).
Previously these two options were integrated in one drop down section. Though this worked in the interim, we feel the separation will create an easier shopping experience. It also allows us to offer more curated style collections, without overwhelming the main shopping menu with too many options.
New Collections
New Collection: Grandpa Sweaters
This is a collection we have previously had on our website, and are bringing back. These are vintage or vintage looking knitwear sweaters that look like something your grandfather would wear. This is a subjective theme, based on personal opinion of a broad range of this style. The theme may not exclusively look like what your grandpa wears.
New Collection: Grandma's Wardrobe
This is a collection that is curated of vintage or vintage looking items that you might find in your grandmother's wardrobe. The collection is primarily sweaters, and sweatshirts. This is a subjective theme, based on personal opinion of a broad range of this style. The theme may not exclusively look like what your grandma wears.
The schedule is subject to change.
We are trialling this time, and day for general new additions to the website. The goal is to have themed drops again in the future, that happen at a separate time.
Where have we been?
In 2023, our website and our social media slowed down almost to a complete stop. Our posts and our new products became further and further apart. The eason in short, was the addition of two antique booths to our business took over.
Between travel, stocking the booth, updating the booth, and pricing the time commitment was overwhelming. It was meant to always be second to the online part of the business. The antique booths became number one priority, and took up almost the entire work week. Instead of taking a step back from the booth to reassess this time commitment, a subconscious step back was taken from online. By accidentally taking a step back from online, it became harder to find a workable schedule to incorporate both sides of the business. Essentially, forgetting how to manage our online business in a sustainable way.
In addition at the end of 2021, we moved and the office moved with us to a small town in Ontario. Where previously we were operating out of London, a city that had a lot of resources. It was over an hour round trip, to get to these resources in the new town. Online sourcing became more sustainable, but was also a larger time commitment, and expense to the business. Then to top off the harder circumstances, personal life commitments and experiences took a huge mental toll throughout 2023. To sum this up: the personal side of the small business, was nearly impossible to operate sustainably without major expensive changes that were not affordable.
The hardest consequence of this is now our Instagram is impossible to get in front of our 5,000+ followers. Which creates low engagement. Low engagement makes the algorithm interpret that as no one wants to see our posts and then puts it in front of even less people. There is a lot of time, and effort put into creating images for Instagram. It's extremely disheartening to see all that effort essentially be seen by no one. Along with the marketing point of posting on Instagram, to drive sales to the website. It doesn't work for marketing, if no one can see it. Which made it extremely hard to want to re-start the business online. It is almost like we are starting over completely.
The other consequence from Instagram / Facebook is the lack of new content, engagement, and new items on the website set us into "bad standing" with these platforms. This means we can't add items to our social media shops, that link to our website. As a driving force for sales, this is a huge hit for our website.
With all of that being explained, please understand as a small business we are not perfect. We make mistakes, and we learn from them. Sadly, this mistake may be extremely hard to return from. Which is why it took so long to do so. We are back though, and giving it our all in a sustainable way. This means it may not be 100 item drops a week right now. Our goal is consistency for you and for us.
