Attire Accessories - Seo/Oct 2019 (Issue 78)

102 SOAKE T: +44 (0)1423 341 000 W: soake.co.uk @soake_uk What trade shows do you attend and why? We attend Autumn Fair and Spring Fair at the NEC each year. This helps show our products to our current customers and hopefully attract a few new ones. We are looking to add to this selection to try to appeal to a wider range of potential buyers. What are your current bestselling designs? Our Boutique umbrellas have proved year on year that they are our bestselling umbrellas. We are going to expand on this collection later this year with some stunning new designs. How do you view the current market, and what trends – both in business and product – do you see emerging over the coming months? We are very dependent on the typical British weather, so our trends are weather-based! Looking at average rainfall over the months does draw a comparison to our sales figure. We do try to look at other trends, such as fashionable colours, to try to implement next season colours into our array of products. Do you have any thoughts on how Brexit will affect your business? Brexit is an unknown to all of us. I would like to think it will not affect our business apart from helping it grow. It may reduce sales to European countries in the future. Some of our Euro customers have slowed the buying with us already, as they want to know what is going to happen after Brexit. What are your future plans for the business? We would like to expand our export sales to the U.S. and increase our Canadian and European sales. We are looking to expand our collections to include sun products such as garden umbrellas and parasols. We should have a couple of collections ready for April 2020!