Founded in 2010 by Victoria Isaac, Vicky, Little Bit Different has become a well respected and award winning Welsh candle brand. With so much experience in the industry exciting opportunities have arisen. Find out a little bit more about Little Bit Different at John Lewis and Dobbies in Vicky’s words.
Little Bit Different at John Lewis
We were given the exciting chance to sell a range of our Christmas products with Curated Makers in John Lewis in Cardiff city centre. To see products you have created in such a well known British department store was a dream come true.
It was a bit of a logistical nightmare but I was determined to make it work. The entire family got struck down by Covid two weeks before stock was meant to be on the shelves which wasn’t ideal. In true entrepreneurial style I stupidly only took one day off work. We got on with labelling and boxing up the products heading to Cardiff. Many were totally new for John Lewis and all needed Curated Makers own barcodes instead of our own. It was hard going but with such a great end goal it was worth it. Who needs sleep when you get to showcase you products inside the walls of such an iconic British brand.
Seeing our products in the centre of the Christmas section of John Lewis was a little surreal and is a moment I will never forget. It was a real turning point for the business and for me as a business owner. I knew what I was doing was making a difference, not just in terms of creating a high quality product but also promoting the Welsh language. To have this confirmed by securing a large display in John Lewis was amazing.
Little Bit Different at Dobbies
As a really keen gardener the offer of popping up in Dobbies garden centre for a week in December 2024 was too good a chance to turn down. I had visited Santa at the garden centre as a child and spent many a Saturday afternoon choosing plants with my parents. Once I had my own garden I was an even more regular visitor. I had no idea how we would manage it logisitically during one of the busiest weeks of the year but I knew we would find a way. It was worth it for the chance meeting with one of the stars of DIY SOS who was working on a project nearby.
We arrived in the dark on the morning of the start of the pop up to find that nothing was ready for us despite many phone calls and emails to the organisers to check. During these calls I was assured that they had spoken to Dobbies and everything was ready. Finally someone found us a table. Sadly it had a broken leg that was only held on with packing tape, it flapped about when moved. With candles being a fairly heavy product and not wanting to injure the public despite being heavily insured we were forced to leave. We were promised a stable surface to set up on the following day.
Unfortunately when we arrived the set up was in a terrible spot with only one small area of our display being able to be seen easily by customers. We put a brave and positive face on it and created the best display we could given the circumstances. It looked great if largely inaccessible. I would like to say that the management team were keen to help us but sadly they were not. As determined business owners we tried our very best to make the week work for us and did manage to make sales despite issues with the card reader we had to use. These photos don’t show how little customers could actually see of our stand as they were taken for social media so were showing as much as possible of our festive candles. The stand was really difficult to see, we had nowhere to stand that didn’t get in the way of customers in wheelchairs or with buggies.
The reason I am not glossing over the down sides of this particular pop up is that is was pretty expensive to do with an upfront payment and then commission on all sales. We were never given any money back for the day when it was not safe for us to set up and no one either at Dobbies or at the Indie Pop Up would arrange for our stand to be moved slightly to make it work. It left us reduced to holding a huge offer for the last few days to avoid loosing money. This is not something that should happen to a small business, not least when they are being “supported” by big chain businesses. It seemed nothing more than a way to make Dobbies seem like they cared about community. Having our car checked incase we stole anything was a nice friendly touch too. I have not been back to Dobbies since the pop up.
One very big plus point was meeting one of the stars of DIY SOS. He was working on a project near by and had called in the buy plants for the garden. He chose some of our candles to use in the house which I was so happy to be able to donate.
I also met some lovely people in the garden centre, many of the staff were really kind. The customers who chatted about candles and bought some to take home were all so interested to find out more about the brand and the people behind it which was great. While our hearts are really in supplying wholesale to other small businesses it is always a really good thing to get out into the wild. Chatting to people face to face is always such good fun. There is nothing as good as seeing the reaction when someone picks up a candle and loves the fragrance..