A WIN-WIN merchandising situation for our early Nottingham Lace products

 Elizabeth tells the Story 

"Elizabeth Cooke - Nottingham Lace " The story of the creation , development & history of a highly successful small business initiative into a national retailing project 

Plus the resulting demise created by a Foot & Mouth epidemic)


The birth on "Elizabeth Cooke - Nottingham Lace" actually evolved from a promotional product design project undertaken for the English branch  of the Italian company  - Golden Lady (Manufacturer of Ladies Hosiery) based in Huthwaite/Notts.

The company's English Managing Sales Director was looking for a small inexpensive  Nottingham Lace related "Give Away" incentive gift to accompany the launch of their Hosiery products in a major well known London Retail Store.

The reaction by the 259 lady consumers who received the "promotional gift" was so dramatic that my wife suggested she wanted to pursue the initiative further by designing and adding several other  "low value" Nottingham Lace products to a unique gift range for the tourist /visitor  market.

Together we achieved this resulting and  "Sandra Elizabeth" approached several outlets in Nottingham to gauge their reaction. At this point the initiative was named “Georgio Romani” adopting some of the roman era of Burton Joyce. The next stage is still a little mysterious in that we were approached to enter the products in the Nottinghamshire Tourist Authority to enter the range in the "Best of Nottinghamshire Product" competition. After several anxious weeks the event " Award " evening arrived, and to cut a long story short - our Nottingham Lace products ( Georgio Romani) were adjudged the winner amongst half a dozen or so others competitors
The very next day was if the world had suddenly become aware of the existence of our small Nottingham Lace interest , with press wanting to come and interview , Hodsock Priory and other  Historic Houses ringing up asking if they could sell our products. As a direct result of this initial interest it was decided to approach all local NT houses with a view to establish and consolidate our existence within the tourist sector. Every NT property we approached began to stock our product and achieved a small number of sales, however it quickly became obvious that there was a vital ingredient missing in our sales efforts – product merchandising
 Fortunately after a relatively short period we developed a unique SOLUTION  - this solution   spontaneously  developed and  was recognise by all our potential stockist as an effective  NO RISK WIN/WIN situation – a sales/merchandise offer which became impossible a genuine Gift Retailer to resist.
 Over the next couple of years we had established 149 retail outlets nationally all taking our goods when and which needed regular routine replenishments  - a scheme with ZERO redundant/obsolete stock for anyone 


HOW DID WE DO IT?    thats to follow later ;-) 

in the meantime why not visit my latest project at 

                                            www.quintessentialenglishlace.co.uk