The importance of sustainability

I thought I'd share a thought on sustainability, but not about the fab products we offer but the sustainability of Born.  Believe it or not 'being there' for new parents, to offer help and advice (as well as products) has always been at the heart of Born.  In the early days we even talked of making the shops charitable so we could spend more time on building support networks and promoting natural parenting  - profit was a means to stay around rather than the main goal.

So with the high street in a bit of a state and one of Bristol's independent baby shops Dinky Inc closing down we thought we'd just highlight the importance of supporting local independently run businesses.

It would probably be easier (and cheaper!) for us to be an online only store, rates and rents would be considerably lower as would staffing, however in doing that we would loose the main reason why we started the business, which was to bring to the high street and to everyday mothers the kinds of products that you just cannot find on the high street.

My biggest rant with our suppliers is when they allow internet only stores to sell their products and incredibly low prices (and sometimes even at a loss) which was what happened in the case of Dinky Inc. This is not sustainable business practice, and if we did that we wouldn't be here now.

We are all to aware that customers come into our stores, have demonstrations and then go online to buy exactly the same thing but cheaper. Most people would do that, however we are always happy to price match (where it means we aren't loosing money) so please ask us, especially if you want us to be around a little longer.

Eva