Unique award-winning Leeds shop - home to 120 independent makers - thriving in close-knit business community
The co-owner of an award-winning Leeds store, which sells Yorkshire-inspired gifts and more, explains what his day-to-day entails.
An award-winning Leeds store, which is home to 120 hand-picked independent makers, sells thousands of handmade products you can’t find on the high street.
The majority of Our Handmade Collective’s makers are based in Yorkshire, with a few favourites from further afield.
Co-owner of Our Handmade Collective Mark says “we hope to carry on and do greater things”
Mark, co-owner of Our Handmade Collective in Horsforth, said: “We have the work of about 120 different makers. We try to keep it as Yorkshire based as possible. However, some of our makers do come elsewhere, but they're mainly Yorkshire based. To be involved in the local community is fantastic. A lot of our makers are actually from Horsforth. We've picked a lot up since we've been in the actual town itself. We do try to keep it as local as possible and we really enjoy being part of a community, especially in Horsforth itself. We have very close ties with some of the other businesses in town and we often run events which are joined between all our little businesses working together to do as best as we can.
“A day in the life for our business is different every single day. We tend to try and find as many new makers as we possibly can if we've got the room. So a typical day would start off with me coming in, come in nice and early, always need a coffee first to get the day started. Then open up about 10 o'clock, it’s a case of we do a little bit of cleaning first thing in the morning.
“First customers tend to come in normally five past 10ish. Tends to be fairly busy the first couple of hours. We also make sure that we are fully restocked as well so anything that needs doing we’ll do.
“Then go through our online orders. So we will have online orders coming in during the night, so they will be picked, they will be put to one side and they will be posted tomorrow morning.
“As the day goes on, we tend to find we have another rush. Normally when the schools are in service we tend to find that we get another rush in just after school finishes and then we close about 5 o'clock, restock and then home.
“It is always a full time job, when we are not here, we are also doing other things. There is a lot of social media to do so we try to do as much as we can on social media. We are always on the view out for new makers, new products. If we think we are missing something we will look online to see if we can find something to fill that little gap that we’ve got that we think we need to fill, so that tends to be done at night as well.
“Our highlights would be we once won the Leeds Love Affair, which is an independent award for independent shops in Leeds. I think a big highlight for us is actually staying open for 13 years in the current environment that we are in at the moment. That's a real bonus for us and we hope to carry on and do extra things and do greater things as well.”
Visit the Our Handmade Collective store at 104 Town Street in Horsforth or shop online via their website here.