Avalanche April Update

Sometimes I despair of the media. Last time I announced we would be closing in January but reopening in February but nobody in the media seemed to have read the whole blog or in some cases any of it ! This time I thought I’d got it right but we seem now to be getting the sensational closing down headlines again despite what I’ve said. I’ve just had it explained to me that the headlines are written by different people hence the positive piece in the Evening News and the negative headline. 

I chose to take the break we had in our lease and I’ll choose again where we move to and when the time is right. Due to a variety of circumstances picking a permanent location just now would not be a wise decision but I’m certainly considering testing out locations. Whatever there will be an Avalanche for people to visit very soon indeed. I hear too many shops described as “a bit sad” or “not what they used to be” and I’ve no intention of letting that happen to Avalanche.

There is only so much I can do and with so many strings now to the Avalanche bow I need to clearly prioritise. With a label, posters and prints, an online shop and the offer of various pop-ups and regular events all to be taken into account exactly how the shop fits in needs careful consideration. Then again given the competition where that shop is and what we stock needs to be got right and not rushed into as well. The Saturday market has been a useful tester for future pop-ups and I have to say I’ve enjoyed it and look forward to doing more. 

I didn’t have a closing down sale because we weren’t closing down. People always said the shop had a lot of stuff and only now it has become apparent to me just how much good stuff we have. With so much stock I will need to clear some of it and there is a plan.

When I first started in this business I soon realised that nearly everybody I came into contact with was 10+ years older than me and knew so much more. I quickly decided then that I knew far too little about the business to have a sensible opinion about most things and learned to “shut the fuck up”. Maybe now it is their turn to realise the same thing.   

As ever thanks to everybody for all the support and I’ll update things as and when I can.