Corban & Blair - Blog

As many of you know I have spent the past 3 years mentoring Euraba as part of an Australia Council initiative.

The Indigenous people of Euraba are unique. They are artists and paper makers specialising in handmade paper on which they create artworks.

In the Goomeroi language, euraba means place of healing, derived from the healing leaves of the eura tree.  Fish, rivers, animals, waterholes, tracks and the walks of life are favourite themes. Cotton is a major crop grown in the region. Euraba Artists & Papermakers use 100% cotton off-cuts from the clothing industry to produce cotton pulp to make their paper. The artists paint with the pulp, although some acrylics are now used. Euraba is located at Boggabilla on the Queensland, New Sales Wales border near Goondiwindi. www.eurabapaper.com.au

Recently I collected some of their paintings from an exhibition in Sydney. Instead of sending them back I invited friends to purchase them. I have 3 left, they are by the founding elders Aunty May and Aunty Joy.

If you are interested to purchase one of these contact me at gillianc@corbanblair.com.au

Last week I had the luxury of rumination -this week it was solution finding.

When you have the best of plans and a set of expectations around an outcome and it does not happen. It is SO CONFRONTING.

Your mind goes immediately to why did this happen? How did it happen, who or what is responsible? and what will we do about it really quickly.

We held our June sale last weekend. We go to a lot of trouble to merchandise it so it looks gorgeous and colourful. It takes several of us about a week to get it in place. We are fussy and want to present our brand well, even during a sale.

We became aware that something was not quite right when the flow of people was a little different than usual and more than one mentioned they had not received their usual invitation.

The glitch was in the email communication where 6000 of our key customers did not receive their invitation. This was a very costly mistake. We have been in business long enough to know that mistakes happen (unfortunately) and what you do about them is what counts. Never making the same mistake again is also a good idea.

The team at Corban & Blair found the glitch very quickly. They put a new system in place and arranged to have a POP IN sale in July for customers who missed out. We had our solution in place in a few hours. This is more hard work (stationery and frames are heavy) but (we hope) this will work for our customers.

If you are also a business owner you will understand the implications that such a small glitch can have on your thinking – you ask yourself questions like is our business logic, current strategies, our brand and product designs and our current communication strategies relevant? Probably not a bad evaluation process to go through in a hurry, but I would not want it to happen often.

See below invitation to our JULY POP IN SALE at Lewisham 30 and 31^st July as well as our 15% off retail On-line SALE.

The nature and purpose of THE SALE has changed.

We are in the midst of our June sale and have been holding mid year clearance sales for the past 20 years.

We do this for several reasons:-

To clean out samples and left over materials ready for the next collection. To sell end of line items and get rid of damaged (not quite perfect stock) as well as sell at reduced prices those items that couriers sometimes play foot ball with. We make available large frames and not standard frames that are too difficult to send by courier. It is also useful cash flow at the end of the financial year.

Our sale is at our work premises and enables everyone who works here to participate and talk to and meet our brand followers. We also watch what interests them and at what price- after all we are product developers.

This used to be why we had sales.

Seeing our sale stock beautifully merchanised is always time for reflection.

In the past we have had some huge sales, usually around Christmas. I think this is now a thing of the past as the major players in the retail environment see markdowns as regular strategy so customers do not see sales as special or an opportunity anymore- just more of the same. This has changed the value of what things appear to cost.

We would miss having our bi annual sales as it is a whole company effort, Amanda and I make the food for the first night drinks, everyone works extra our accountant and family included. It is a diversion and we get to see lots of customers, friends and new clients.

As things change so quickly, I wonder how we will adapt and incorporate this sale mentality into our regular strategy.

I am interested in what other people think of the nature of “THE SALE”. Have we ruined them? If you have other ideas let me know. Thanks.