LIFE DURING LOCKDOWN
Its May 1st and, in the UK, we've been in lockdown due to the Coronavirus since March 23rd.
The impact on the gloveglu business, like many businesses throughout the globe, has been significant and, upon lockdown, we immediately moved to skeleton staffing and more measured social distancing.
The office is deserted (apart from "Dave" our resident showroom dummy) but it's given us all a chance to concentrate, not least, on the future development plans and strategy for 2020 and beyond and a chance to reflect on every aspect of the operation.
In production, we have invested in a new bottling machine to increase production levels and turnaround times and to ensure that stock levels are high when we come out the other side of lockdown and thus are able to react to any business upturn.
In marketing we have reviewed social media strategies, our email databases, pop-ups and looked generally at ways to connect with our customers. Social media advertising has also been increased to further deepen our relationships.
In new product development, we have been working hard on an exciting new project, planning the launch for later this year and ensuring that our factories can deliver ready for the start of a new season (whenever that may be) but more importantly for Christmas. In fact, Christmas planning has been at full speed with some new and exciting bundle packs in production alongside some additional gift items.
The website continues to have more content added as well as the introduction of our gluBOT to help customers choose the right product -something that has been a huge success and well received.
In customer care we have installed zendesk to ensure that queries are answered in a professional and timely manner.
Our amazon business has been overwhelmed, particularly in the product categories that support solo training such as Responseballs and cycling gloves.
For many, this has been a particularly tough and challenging time, and our hearts go out to those that have lost loved ones. We salute the front lines staff, the doctors, nurses and carers and we look forward to the day that football (and indeed all sport) begins again.
But until that time we wish all our customers the very best and thank you for your support.
