With the festive season on its way, GiftsandHome.net asked Aga Gabrysiak, owner of Highworth Emporium in Highworth, how she has been approaching Christmas 2019.
When did you first start thinking about Christmas gifts and when did products go in store?
“With customers starting to ask about the opening of our Christmas room as early as August, we officially opened our Christmas room on September 28.”
What was the challenge this year?
“After three festive seasons at the shop, and with our customers expectations running high, the challenge was to make it as different and exciting as the previous year.”
Can you tell us about the theme you’ve chosen?
“We decided to focus on a woodland theme featuring some large pieces from Heaven Sends. We also invested in a snowing machine that creates a snow effect by slowly releasing shredded transparent plastic from the container hang on the ceiling. I’m hoping this will give our Christmas room the ‘wow’ factor,” she enthuses. This month, we are also putting it into our main windows, so that together with the woodland theme, it will hopefully all look stunning!”
Are you doing an promotions in the run up to Christmas Day?
“We’ll be hosting a Christmas evening this month, offering customers 10% off Christmas products. This is the only time we actually have a special Christmas offer, as we don’t offer any special deals until our Christmas sale in January. We will also be working very hard on our social media to both attract new customers and to tease the existing ones. We’ve found that this works very well for us. Last year we tagged into Visa’s TV advert to promote “shop local” in our shop, and held a very successful raffle, but we are pushing it further this year with other local shops. The aim is to have one giant raffle, promoting all our businesses and encouraging people to stay and shop in our town.”
Top: Part of the Christmas room at Highworth Emporium.
