In many respects, 2022 was a tough year – and not just for the promotional merchandise industry. The Ukraine war put stresses on energy costs and supply lines; the cost of living (and therefore business) is at a 40 year high; along with double-digit inflation and interest rates marching ever higher.
But looking back across 2022, it was also one of the most successful in Hatters’ history! This isn’t a gloat. We appreciate that things remain very challenging, and we still feel some of those challenges ourselves. But we also put plans in place and delivered on them. And sometimes, regardless of what’s going on in the bigger picture, it’s important to acknowledge and celebrate your own wins.
We got off to a fantastic start when in January 2022, we completed the acquisition of Beeline Promotions, a long-established, supplier of promotional merchandise, located in the heart of Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter.
Beeline Promotions are well respected within the Midlands and have a complementary client base to ours including public sector organisations such as West Midlands Police, many local authorities and they even worked on the 2022 Birmingham Commonwealth Games.
Our fulfilment and print management offering are an attractive addition for their clients and equally, Hatters will benefit from Beeline’s public sector tendering experience.
Speaking of fulfilment, having re-fitted our warehouse, our stockholding capacity increased by 200%, and we can also set up webshops, allowing clients to see visuals of what they hold with us, call off items for shipment and monitor stock levels.
Our headcount is currently 11, up from 6 pre-Covid (excluding the Beeline team); have signed up to the Greater Manchester Good Employment Charter; existing clients increased their spend with us and it was wonderful to win significant levels of new business. All of which has driven turnover up by almost 100%.
In the autumn, we were thrilled to attend the Stockport Business Awards and win Business of the Year, in the Under £1Million Turnover category! An achievement we won’t be able to repeat, as in 2023, we’ll be entering the £1-5Million Turnover category!
Whilst our numbers demonstrate the progress we‘ve made, they’re actually just a by-product of the real story. Clients now seek out our advisory service on producing sustainable, branded, promotional material, using genuinely sustainable supply chains. We’ve evolved from being purely a promotional merchandise provider, to becoming a consultative engagement agency, providing, print, storage, hamper, staff & customer gift boxes, fulfilment and a global distribution service.
And that’s why we’re so excited about 2023. We’re already in detailed discussions about a further acquisition; the full integration of Beeline is all but complete (tech always takes longer than you think); we have wonderful opportunities to expand our business into Europe and plan to take on more staff.
The challenges mentioned at the beginning won’t just disappear overnight, along with the ever-present speculation about the R-word. That said – we just don’t see it. Writing this at the beginning of February, we can honestly say, we’ve never seen a January like it. We’ve broken all sales records - and we mean, out of the ballpark broken. And that’s saying something after 30 years in business! February is already looking the same way and that was before we’d even got there.
We chose to focus on what we can control, or at the very least, influence, and our drive to improve, expand and deliver quality solutions for our clients, catapulted us into 2023! And that’s exactly what we’ll continue doing throughout 2023 and into 2024.
