Why I closed the shop
This was the first full week since the Wovenwood shop officially closed. Shop, warehouse, showroom, studio, daycare during school holidays, temporary housing during our renovation (very, very temporary) - it was all of these things and so much more to me. But the reality is, it is also the reason I haven’t been able to move the business forward in the way I want to.
Although I know it felt sudden to some of you, closing the shop was not an impulsive decision. It wasn't made in a hard week or after a tough month. It was made slowly, over spreadsheets and lots of conversations - some with those of you who visit regularly. Ultimately, what was an excruciatingly challenging decision to make was also one of the clearest.
If you've been here a while, you know I like to keep it real and frequently pull back the curtain on the business, so I thought I'd share a bit more of the full story for those who are interested or potentially even experiencing similar challenges in their own business.
The Reality of Overhead
There are two consistent trends in retail right now that are impossible to ignore. The first is rising overhead. Rent, utilities, insurance, staffing, maintenance - the cost of operating a physical retail space has increased significantly across the board. This is of course not unique to Wovenwood and has become a challenge for all businesses and individuals alike.
The second challenge is shopping behaviour. I can't tell you how many times someone walked into the shop and said, " I just had to see it in person first," and I loved that. I loved having a place a customer could come to touch timber, feel textiles and consider the scale of a piece.
But here's the truth: over 80% of our sales were happening online.
Not seeing something in person was not prohibitive for most of our customers. The data was clear - if 80% of revenue is coming from ecommerce, that's where the infrastructure, energy and investment need to be focused.
At some point sentiment can't outweigh sustainability. Time Value Management
I will be the first to admit, having a space to endlessly merchandise was a dream. Visual storytelling is my happy place and there is no limit to the number of times I can move furniture, reset a room, restyle shelves and create refreshed moments. The warehouse was a canvas I was all too happy to use. But, with only 20% of sales happening in store, a disproportionate amount of time and energy was being spent servicing the smallest slice of the business. If my job is to grow Wovenwood, then my time needs to be spent where the growth is happening - online.
Also, a detail that I think can easily be lost on the average person (it certainly was lost on me before launching Wovenwood) is that ecommerce is not just uploading products. It's content creation, photography, SEO, digital marketing, customer service, sourcing, product development, analytics and strategy. In a large operation, each of these have a dedicated person or team. At Wovenwood, it's one woman - me - learning and then doing it all. Very little of these tasks were getting done during shop hours, which left evenings and weekends...bringing me to my next point!
Flexibility and Family
This one has been quietly building for some time. As many of you know, before Wovenwood I owned an events firm in California for over a decade. It could be intense work that required me to travel all over the country, but it was cyclical. There were seasons of high demand and seasons of breathing room. For some reason, I assumed this small business would afford the same flexibility.
But, ecommerce never closes.Being physically tied to the shop from 9am to 3pm every day made it incredibly difficult to get the administrative and strategic work done. The website, the content, supplier calls across time zones, bookkeeping...the list goes on and on and it was all happening after school pick-up, after dinner, after bedtime. I realised that instead of creating a business that supported my life (as intended), I was creating a life that revolved entirely around my business. That's not the model I want for the next decade.
Profitability and Protecting the Future
To date, Wovenwood has not been profitable. That's not entirely unusual for a start-up retail business. The first three to five years often require significant reinvestment to build brand recognition, infrastructure and product development.
But the past 24 months in retail have been volatile. I'm sure you can name at least one business that has opted to shutter their doors. I did not and do not want that to be Wovenwood. I have massive plans for this brand. Foundational pieces, exclusive collections, a deeper digital presence, wholesale and trade growth - these all require capital, focus and clear economics.
Closing the shop was not about giving up. It was about protecting what we are building.To move forward, the numbers have to make sense. Simplifying the model gives us the best chance of long-term sustainability.
What I Will Miss
This is the part that I still struggle with.
I will miss opening up the roller door in the morning. I will miss impromptu styling sessions and spontaneous conversations with my neighbours as they walk to get a coffee at Fox. I will miss getting to see pieces leave in the back of someone's car, knowing exactly where they're off to. I will even miss chatting with the various couriers who pick up daily from me, knowing it will be a new group who cover my home territory.
The warehouse holds so many Wovenwood Stories.The warehouse is where the brand took shape in the real world, where we built a community, not just a customer base. Letting go of that is not so easy.
What Comes Next
For the past several weeks we've been slowly moving everything out of the warehouse and into the new fulfilment centre in my own house. It's been a daunting and exhausting task, but the new space is nearly finished, and at this stage I just feel excitement. I'm excited to have the bandwidth to focus on the part of the business that is already thriving as well as the time to ensure Wovenwood has the strategy and structure in place to grow for the long term.
With this new breathing room and with the encouragement of numerous loyal customers, I am exploring various opportunities – styling services, community markets and pop-up shopping experiences – to name a few. If you've made it this far in this story, I would love to hear from you and what you'd like to see from the brand next. Use the button below to drop me a line.
In closing, I would just like to say thank you to everyone who has supported Wovenwood, whether in person or online. This has been a truly beautiful chapter and it did exactly what it needed to do, but now, we turn a page.
