Hi Everyone,
Firstly it goes without saying that I hope everyone has stayed fit well over the last few months and also you have stayed mentally sane as these have certainly been times like no other we have been going through with a variety of different challenges but it does appear that the worst is now behind us, well let’s certainly hope so and like most of the country’s ‘Non Essential’ shops (although I would argue we are pretty essential for a lot of our customers) we will be reopening from Tuesday 16th which I am delighted about.
I also want to thank everyone for their support through this period, it was really nice to get so many emails and phone calls of genuine concern and like many I really thought we were heading into a really difficult trading period, looking back though it has been the total opposite and I actually felt busier during Lockdown than when we are normally open, obviously we had to adapt the way we worked but lending kit out for people to try at home proved very popular, either sent by courier or by us taking it to peoples houses, Wendy did a 400+ mile round trip one day dropping kit off whilst on the same day I was out also, I think we did 10 drops that day, anyway the main thing is that we got through it but really are ready now to re-open our doors, although I’ve been busy it has still been very strange having the showrooms shut since March 24th and with no one coming in, over the last couple of weeks I have had to get all the kit back though as at one point the shop looked like it had been robbed as most of it was in people’s homes but we have everything back now, ready for action.
So what is the new way forward? For the time being we will be strictly appointment only with no drop in’s allowed, I never wanted to make this place appointment only as I don’t like putting barriers up for people but we really have no choice at the moment so until the country is Coronavirus free (I really hope it goes as quick as it came) then we will work appointment only with 1 to 2 demo’s a day and we will have hand sanitiser available when customers come in, we will have a dedicated customer toilet that we will clean thoroughly after every customer and we will maintain social distancing, if anyone coming in can respect this also that will be great as we all need to stay fit and healthy.
I have already had quite a few people book demo’s for Tuesday onwards next week so it looks like we will soon get back to some kind of normality, I can’t wait to start demoing again as really missed that but going forward I think we will run the business slightly differently so if you are a little nervous about coming in due to the virus but would like to try something at home just get in touch and we can arrange something and I also think for a lot of people they would rather try kit at home, which does make a lot of sense, so again just give me a shout and we can get something arranged. I think one victim this year will be open days, we love a good open day here but I think any we had planned will be on hold now till next year which actually is a real shame as we’ve got some great new kit that we could have showcased.
Talking of new equipment we have, just before lockdown I ordered loads of new toys to play with which all just started trickling in before Lockdown was announced so I have had that stored away safely until the moment we could open again, I have started doing a few blogs on our website announcing new kit and brands, please find a few links below if of any interest and another fun blog I did was my top 12 Most influential albums, now these are not necessarily my all time favourites but what I feel laid the foundations for my love of music, that really was good fun going back and re-visiting those albums.
Anyway I’ll shut up now and look forward to some kind of a normal service resuming at HFL and if you’d like to come in for a demo please feel free to get in touch to make an appointment.
All the best,
Regards,
Paul, Wendy and Ady.
