《My Memoirs》 03.10 | Why I Started Building a Wholesale Business

《我的回忆录》03.10｜为什么我开始发展wholesale业务

English Version ⬇️

第一次 Lockdown 结束后，英国零售短暂恢复，我们终于迎来了一个喘息的机会。虽然那一年的圣诞销售季充满了不确定性，但至少门店重新开了，我们终于又可以做生意了。

然而，谁也没有想到，2021年1月，英国再次进入全国 Lockdown。短短几个月内，零售行业第二次被按下暂停键。

🚨 就在那一刻，我突然意识到一个问题：

⚠️ 真正的风险，不是门店关了，而是我的收入来源只有一个。

过去，我所有的收入几乎都来自零售门店。每天关注的是门店营业额、客流量和销售数据。当门店停止营业时，企业几乎失去了全部现金流。

👉 那时候我开始思考：一家企业，如果只有一种收入来源，当不可控的事情发生时，它几乎没有抵抗风险的能力。我开始寻找新的可能。

后来，在和合作多年的供应商不断沟通后，我们开始尝试发展 Wholesale 业务，帮助他们在英国拓展销售渠道，并提供仓储发货、客户管理以及展会支持等本地服务。

这项业务一开始并不大。但在那个最困难的时期，它却成为了企业重要的收入来源之一。与此同时，我们的 Online 业务也逐渐步入正轨。

👉 回头看，如果没有那两次 Lockdown，我可能不会这么早意识到现金流多元化的重要性，也不会开始建立零售以外的业务。

📍 后来我才明白：

很多能力，并不是企业顺利的时候学会的，而是在一次次危机中，被逼着建立起来。危机不会让企业变得更强。它只是让你看见，哪些地方原本就不够强。而成长，往往就从那里开始。

在零售这条路上，用我12年的真实经验，陪你少走一些弯路。-Lily

《My Memoirs》 03.10 | Why I Started Building a Wholesale Business

After the UK's first lockdown ended, retail slowly began to reopen.For the first time in months, it felt as though we could finally breathe again.We made it through an uncertain Christmas trading season, hoping the worst was behind us.

Then, in January 2021, the UK entered another national lockdown.Retail was forced to stop all over again.

🚨 That was the moment I realised something that completely changed the way I thought about running a business.

⚠️ The biggest risk wasn't that my stores had to close. It was that I only had one source of income.

Before COVID, almost all of my revenue came from physical retail. When the stores closed, so did the business's cash flow.

That's when I realised that relying on a single revenue stream made the business far more vulnerable than I had ever imagined.

So I started looking for another way forward.

After many conversations with one of our long-term suppliers, we began building a wholesale business together, supporting their UK expansion through local distribution, warehousing, customer management and trade exhibitions.

It wasn't a large business in the beginning. But during one of the most difficult periods we'd ever faced, it became an important source of income.

At the same time, our online business was gradually finding its feet.

👉 Looking back, I don't think I would have started either business without COVID. Sometimes, it takes a crisis to expose the weaknesses we never realised existed.

📍 One of the biggest lessons I learned was this:

A resilient business doesn't rely on a single source of revenue.

The strongest businesses aren't the ones that never face disruption, they're the ones that learn how to adapt when disruption arrives.

If you’re on a similar journey in retail, you’re not alone , we’ve been through many of the same challenges. Always happy to connect. -Lily