The Maybe Moving Sale...

Someone famous once said "The world is full of surprises". They're right. When a group of people turned up at the shop a couple of weeks ago to ask about taking over our lease, I was very surprised. In all fairness, they were probably equally surprised when I didn't chase them off the premises with a broom. Instead, we sat down and had a cuppa and a chat, and it now looks like I am up for another new experience - moving shop!

In a previous post, I talked about moving into the shop at Northcote and realising that I had, for the first time in my existence and entirely by accident, done something cool. It has since dawned on me that cool is a mixed blessing. Cool areas are not cheap. Cool areas are not low-maintenance. Cool areas are prone to sell out or suffer sudden rent increases.

Not to put too fine a point on it, the shop is breaking even, when I want it to make a dirty great profit. My cunning plan, therefore, is to move a couple of hundred metres up the road to Croxton. Croxton is the shopping wasteland between cool Northcote and up-and-coming Thornbury. Most of the shops in Croxton are permanently shut, presumably providing low-cost accommodation for the financially disadvantaged. The shops that aren't squats are sweatshops of some variety.

BUT the rents are about half of Northcote rents - and knitters are prepared to travel! Even better, there will be no rival attractions - our wool and our coffees will be the only game in town, or at least within about a kilometre radius. While I don't like my chances of keeping my current customers if I relocate to Brighton, I think my chances are pretty good if I stay in the area.

The downside? The downside is finding something that is free , while simultaneously trying to negotiate the handover of the lease, making sure that the new place isn't too grotty and also trying to sell off as much wool as possible to make sure we don't injure ourselves packing for the move....

This is where you can help (imagine a puppy-shelter-fundraising voiceover here). All we ask is for you to give some of our wool a new home. Buy it at a 20% discount and give it the loving home it deserves. Otherwise, it will get stuffed into a great big box and thrown onto a truck - you know that it deserves better!! Save our wool and your money today. (This post was sponsored by the Association for Bigger Stashes or ABS for short).