Giving Tuesday

"When we remember a special Christmas, it is not the presents that made it special, but the laughter, the feeling of love, and the togetherness of friends and family that made that Christmas special."

Hello,

This time of year can be a little frantic, can’t it? 

I had a few questions this year about whether I was running any BF promotions – and you may have noticed that we did not. We did last year and it’s something I sadly regret.

Whilst it probably goes against sensible business strategy as it’s the busiest shopping weekend of the year, the frenzied, anxiety-riddled rushing to buy, bombardment of emails and ticking clocks (in particular during a COLC) just doesn’t gel with our way of a slower paced, intentional living and meaningful gifting.

I work really hard on everything I produce and put so much time and love into all my products, and slashing the prices of them to meet up with the demand from bigger brands (incidentally, a study from Which? found that 98% of BF products are cheaper at other points in the year) devalues that effort and leaves me very much out of pocket. I work hard to maintain a tight margin that pays me for the time I devoted to it, but also offers quality products at a fair price. One of the main types of feedback I get from customers is of the quality of our products, so I hope you will agree on that point too.

Typically, small businesses see a dip in sales over a BF weekend as they can’t keep up with big brand price drops, so if you placed an order this weekend with a small business, or with me, please know how grateful that owner will have been, you’re supporting someone’s dream and that will mean the world that you’ve chosen to spend your money with them.

So whilst we won’t be participating in Black Friday anymore, something else caught my eye this year. I learned that there is such a day called Giving Tuesday, which had been running under my radar every year. It falls, quite fittingly, after Cyber Monday and works as a kind of antidote to the consumerism of the days preceding. 

Giving Tuesday was a concept created in 2012 as a day to encourage people to do good. It’s now grown into a global movement, with people across the world donating to good causes, volunteering their skills or campaigning for change.

This Christmas in the U.K., around 1 in 6 of us will use a food bank. The Christmas dinner, an infamous meal we look forward to annually, is when everyone stops what they’re doing to sit down together, celebrate and enjoy each other’s company. And whilst gifts may be forgotten, memories made at the Christmas dinner table will likely be remembered for years to come. It’s painful to think how many families might go without it this year.

With that in mind, we’re embracing this day and donating 10% of all sales today, and for the rest of this week to midnight on Friday, to the Trussell Trust – a wonderful charity supporting food banks across the U.K., with a goal to end the need for them altogether. You can find out more about their work, as well as your local food bank (that would love a food donation!) here.

I know it may not feel like a huge donation, but as a small business, it’s just about what we can afford at the moment, and hopefully in the future we’ll be able to increase that support. Giving Tuesday feels like the obvious way to progress with this weekend in years to come. I hope you agree.

Thanks for shopping small, and supporting our dream.

Jenny x