2009 Sped past us here at the Fair Trade Jewellery Co., we moved from a concept in a small studio into an atelier built from the frame of a dreary office like space lacking only cubicles. Despite our success, we also faced our fair share of challenges…
2009 Sped past us here at the Fair Trade Jewellery Co., we moved from a concept in a small studio into an atelier built from the frame of a dreary office like space lacking only cubicles. Designed to promote both creativity in the designers that work there and provide our customers a comfortable environment to learn about ethical jewellery and its production, our space far surpassed any expectations. Feedback from the local community has been extremely positive, and we hope we can encourage more businesses to join us in Cabbagetown to make a positive impact on the area.
We successfully followed through on our commitment to make social responsibility, both local and abroad, a founding principle of our business. In 2009 we continued our commitment to HoHoTo a fund raiser for the Daily Bread Food bank as both an organizer and in kind sponsor, we’ve also developed an exciting relationship designing creative fundraising programs with War Child Canada, and we supported / sponsored our friends at SpinTO a fundraiser for the Friends for Life Bike Rally in support of the Toronto People with AIDS Foundation. Not bad considering we ‘officially’ launched in October. We look forward to carrying this success forward diversifying our support each year to best reflect the communities we conduct business in.
Like any new business, we also faced our fair share of challenges in 2009. The renovations completed by ourselves, friends and family produced an awesome result but the speed of completion and inexperience managing such a large project severely delayed our opening. It was an expensive delay that restricted our ability to design and produce the desired number of original products for our branded lines. Our renovation project sent waves through everything we endeavored to do; we managed what time we had to production design and on custom commissions for those customers referred to us. This focus on the ‘business at hand’ restricted our ability to properly serve any new clients who, while patient with us, rightly expected more attention and better communication. As a result purchases were made elsewhere. We understand, and we greatly appreciate the candid feedback from those people as they helped us identify the areas we need to to improve the most.
We believe in 100% satisfaction for clients, the products we’re producing are intensely personal and often represent a significant investment. In addition to being 100% ethical in our sourcing we must also provide best in class customer service which will be our #1 focus in 2010.
So how will we better serve you?
Hours. Our hours have been sporadic despite being advertised on our site and store windows. This was one of the unforeseen problems of the incredible demand we’ve experienced. This will be resolved in 2010 simply with staff.. Our focus will be on structuring consultations better, improving our availability during popular times.
Choice. We were under the misconception we could design and produce jewellery from an original sketch for each customer. While romantic in its sentiment this is creatively exhausting, time consuming and if we are to be completely honest not at all profitable. In 2010 we will continue to offer dedicated custom services for clients seeking creative solutions, but in addition to this we will introduce open show cases stocked with a large variety of samples for customers to physically interact with. These samples will include both a collection of curated classic styles and our own expanding original collection, each ring easily modified to fit each customers specific needs. We believe this solution will help us better educate customers on options, by using the styles to teach associated terms. Should a customer not wish to shop with us they should at least leave with a greater sense of confidence and a literacy of jewellery.
Education. Most of the positive feedback received over past few months has been about the time dedicated to educate clients. We intend on expanding on this with a series of articles to be published on our blog as well as some creative video to build on our the success of our documentary.
Price. In addition to the work we do with Oro Verde metals from Colombia, we will introduce a second (ethical) product line designed to meet competitive price points. This collection will include pre-made rings ready for purchase without any wait.
We will maintain our hours until January by appointment only so we may focus on one on one service, current clients and our 2010 mandate. Of course there are a few more surprises up our sleeves in 2010 but we’ll save them till we’re done.
Wishing everyone a Happy Holidays and a wonderful New Year!
Love;
Tags: ethics, Fair Trade Jewellery Company, ftj, ftjco, ryan taylor