Business Love Stories - Inspired Worthing
Give a seagull it’s due it doesn’t care who it steals from. Old ladies, daytrippers, small children, it matters not. A chip, is a chip, is a chip. When you live by the sea you don’t consume snacks out in the open, that’s for the tourists. We residents keep our snacks close, especially where Mr Whippys are concerned. On the other hand there is nothing better than to watch seagulls in the sky above the waves, or clammering around a fishing boat. This is the love hate relationship we have with the seagull.
And nowhere demonstrates this better than Inspired, a bright, well thought out store selling work by over forty local designers, artists and makers right on the prom next to Worthing pier. You can buy a ‘Do Not Approach - will steal your chips’ tea towel featuring two particularly menacing examples, or a wistful blue lino cut print of seagulls wheeling above the pier.
Run by Gemma and Sophie, Inspired is style over substance all the way. Badges, patches, tea towels and coasters; Beautiful wrapping paper, notebooks and prints; Greetings cards, fridge magnets, t-shirts and keyrings. All the things you expect to find each one gift worthy. A cheeky coaster reads ‘Peckers’ featuring nine delightfully drawn type of woodpecker. A print of eight beach huts and the sentence ‘we like beach huts and we cannot lie!’ adorns the wall. And a Scandanavian inspired flower brooch made from laser cut acrylic. Simple and beautiful. This is not your traditional bucket and spade affair.
What made you set up on your own?
Sophie and Gemma met at university in the nineties. Sophie went on to work in media, while Gemma opted for retail. Sophie says “We met at university and we’ve been friends ever since. I spent thirteen years in a job I loved but towards the end I got fed up and I’m so pleased I was brave enough to leave.”
Can you remember the moment you decided?
Sophie and Gemma were in the pub, where all logical and rational decisions are made after a couple of drinks. Sophie “We went out to watch my husband running a 10k, both umming and ahing and just thought ‘let’s do it’.
The previous owners who are friends of ours, already sold work by local artists, and wanted to retire and we thought if we don’t do it now then when?”
How would you describe your relationship with your business right now
These two seem to make a really good team. Gemma says “We muddle through, we share similar ideas of how the shop should run. We don’t assign ourselves roles, it just works. Sophie does the social media which is a full time job in itself these days. We use Instagram to advertise the business and what we do, and it works well for us.”
Sophie, “Because Gemma worked in retail her strength is the visual look of the shop, inside and how it looks from the outside. I leave her to do that because she’s brilliant at it. I set up the website during lockdown but we do everything together.”
When was it at its worst? What was happening to you then?
Sophie and Gemma took over Inspired in November 2019. Remember, they had both left jobs and taken on a business on which local artists relied upon to showcase, and sell, their work. Like the rest of us, their whole world was about to be turned upside down.
Sophie, “We just didn’t know how to prepare for it or how long it was going to last for. We’d had the excitement of opening, then Christmas and were planning for the future and then this sudden realisation we couldn’t open. That was scary.”
Gemma, “It sounds horrible to say something positive came out of it but because we’re on the prom and people we’re walking past for their daily exercise it got us noticed a lot more which was kind of a blessing.”
What advice would you give to another owner who’s feeling disillusioned?
Sophie, “Take a step back and decide if it’s really what you want to do. If you wake up in the middle of the night, and you’re spending money, after money, after money, scared of what’s going to happen, then maybe it isn’t right. If that were us, we wouldn’t go on regardless because life’s too short, isn’t it?”
What keeps you connected to why you started your business in the first place?
Like all small businesses it’s the people who make it successful, and in this case it’s the artists and makers.
Sophie says, “There are so many creative people we can support. We’ve got forty five local artists in here, most of them are friends and we provide each other with a good support network.”
Would you say you love your business?
Sophie, “Yes! Our shop is so colourful and joyous and it makes people smile. Customers comment that it makes them happy on a grey day. It’s got something for everyone, you hear people giggling away at the cards, it makes me laugh so much and it’s nice to know people can come in here and do that. Not every shop is like that.” She ain’t wrong!
Gemma; “A lot of customers I now class as friends. They walk along with their dogs and it feels like you’re part of the community, not just a shop. A lot of the people we talk to they’ve never been in the shop we just chat, it’s nice. We know all the names of the dogs.”
Tell us about something you’ve done to show your business love and nurture your relationship with it.
The sign of a good space is when you walk in and don’t notice how well it’s pulled together, the overall look or theme doesn’t flag up on your radar. This is where being selective pays off.
Sophie, “Artists come to us in different ways. I used to do lots of markets in Brighton and got to know them there. Some come into the shop and approach us. We look on Instagram, social media and artists websites. Things leap out at us, we mostly agree on what will work.”
Gemma says, “Every print or product we take on has to fit in with the rest of the work. You have to curate the shop as a whole, because if something doesn’t sit well it’s not going to sell. That’s no good for both us and the artists and makers, them to get commission and us to run a business.
And whatever we take on has got to be colourful - definitely!
Who or what keeps you going in tough times?
Sophie and Gemma don’t make drama for themselves. Sophie, “We love what we do so much we don’t really have any struggles. In the past, working for someone else it was much more demanding because it wasn’t our business. When it’s our issue to sort out it’s not really an issue at all.
Any major problems involved lockdown probably because we were so new to it as well. We’ve had no major issues between ourselves.”
What do you love about working for yourself?
Sophie, “Freedom and autonomy, the power to make our own choices, to choose what we want to stock and who we want to support. And to make people smile.”
How seasonal is your business?
You’d be forgiven for assuming summer is the peak season for a business on the prom of a busy seaside town. Inspired is open year round and has a loyal customer following who come in whatever the weather.
Gemma says, “Footfall in summer can be off the scale but that doesn’t necessarily translate into sales. The trade is in the Christmas run up. November and December is our busiest trading time.”
So, next time you’re in Worthing, visit Inspired for a smile and a warm glow. I doubt you will leave empty handed. If nothing else I guarantee you’ll leave with a seagull themed memento to remind you of the time you had a bag of chips…and then you didn’t.