Two friends who decided to set up a shop together – despite owning completely separate businesses – are reaping the rewards after 100 days in business.
Pamela Macauley and Siobhan Harkin met just over 18 months ago while trading at adjacent craft and vintage stalls around Cheshire, and they went on to run separate shops at the Traders Outlet (now Emporium) on The Downs.
But after an interest-free loan from Trafford Council, the pair decided to move their businesses – Macauley’s Vintage Angel Design, which sells vintage and hand-made gifts, cards and furnishings, and Harkin’s florists Hummingbird Flowers – into the same unit at the refurbished Stamford House.
And as the two-in-one shop approaches the 100-day mark, trade is “running ahead of forecast levels” – and Macauley hailed the importance of the council loan, which was arranged through Altrincham Forward.
She said: “Two friends, who met on a market, setting up their first shop together in a partnership of two businesses wouldn’t stand a chance of getting through the traditional business development loan process and getting finance.”
Harkin added: “Altrincham Forward and Trafford Council got to know us, got to understand us, saw the potential in our products and location, recognised we have a loyal and growing customer base and provided us with a loan that was the difference between getting the business going and being restricted to market stalls and craft fairs.”
Below: The two-in-one shop in Stamford House on Moss Lane
Virtually everything in Macauley’s side of the shop – Vintage Angel Design – is handmade, including vintage-style greetings cards, wedding cake toppers, party theme packages, home decorations and gifts.
“Everything I make or produce is either unique, very limited run, or individually commissioned,” she added. “Selling at craft, vintage and specialist markets limited how much I could make and display, so the new shop unleashes all sorts of potential – including a great partnership with Siobhan and Hummingbird Flowers.”
As well as being able to produce her handmade greetings cards and gifts at the shop, an area of potential for Macauley is furniture-painting demonstrations: she’s been appointed, exclusively for the area, an official retailer of Grand Illusions vintage-style paint.
“Customers buy my hand-painted furniture, and then ask me to show them how to paint their other furniture to match,” she added.
“I’ve been doing it myself at home for years; I paint everything – my family even joke that they daren’t leave me alone with our ginger cat, Mr Darcy, in case I paint him duck-egg blue – but Grand Illusions took me down to their headquarters and showed me some techniques that specifically suit their paints, and which I can demonstrate to customers.”
Harkin, a former London florist who had clients around Mayfair and Kensington, added: “The partnership created itself: customers would go to Pam’s stall to buy something, and then straight to mine to buy flowers or a plant to go with it, or they’d buy flowers from me and get a card from Pam.
“Our styles were very similar from the start, so even before we established the business partnership, people thoughts we were the same business anyway.”
Below: Siobhan Harkin (left) and Pamela Macauley, and inside the shop
