A Candid Update On Fleur et Ours

A candid update on Fleur et Ours

2023 has felt like a fight against failure…

…actively scrambling to prevent my beloved business from sinking. It has really been a case of maintaining my face for the sake of my ego and that’s exhausting! But, every day I see more of us letting go and allowing things to take their course. Whilst I haven’t sunk, I have been failing: failing to see what lessons can be learned, failing to bend to the current wave thinking I need to be doing what I have always done.

When you are a small business, especially a one woman business, it can be very isolating and you can feel like the challenges you are facing are yours alone. Talking to fellow small business owners can be hard even when they are your closest friends, but when you finally do the answers are often the same “me too”. It is a comfort, however a bittersweet one.

Add to it all the invisible pressure that is Social Media. It can be very easily interpreted that everyone else is doing well, and I often sit and wonder “what am I doing wrong?” It has led me to wanting to spend less and less time using it – detrimental to an online business right, but my mental health is not so easily rebuilt as a ‘following’.

The basis of Fleur et Ours was always to mirror my own natural pace of life, organic growth, slow living, everything that encourages creativity to flourish. And I have been trying to hold onto it all with a tight fisted grasp. However, as the shop is my only income I have been having to rely on a higher and higher volume of sales in order to keep up, the reverse of what I wanted to create. The harder times become the harder I have to work for little to no return, leaving less and less time to create additional income elsewhere, spend time with my family, friends and appreciating what I do have. It gets to a point where I think my head may explode because I don’t have the answers. Well I didn’t, but two things have happened this week to open my eyes to another way of thinking.

Believe it or not I don’t venture into large corporate shops that often, partly because since Covid I struggle with impulse control and also because ever since forever I become very easily overwhelmed. But this week I ventured into a clothing shop (Back to Schoolwear shopping, oh the joys) and a homeware shop. What hit me was the amount of products that were on sale or had a promotional discount. A noticeable amount more than this time last year. It made me realise that it isn’t a bias against my small shop, something I am doing incredibly wrong, it is a clear sign of the times.

Then I saw on Social Media a post by someone I follow who is making the exciting leap into ventures new and as such is offering a massive 50% off their products. It made me realise that these giant sales we are all offering aren’t necessarily an admittance of failure, but actually a tool to free us into the next phase of our journey.

And that my fellow creative spirits is exactly what I am doing now. I am discounting all fabrics that have  been in stock for an extended period of time by 50% in order to clear down and give me space: the space both physically and mentally to follow my evolving ventures, weather the storm and realign.

I have no end date in mind for the discount at present, we shall see how it goes! But the new prices are live on the website now, please just bear in mind that it may be a slower turnaround if I get busy – if something is urgent, please email me.

Thank you for reading,

Kayleigh x