Press Room: 29 Apr 10
Michael Sweeney the in-coming GA Chairman
New Chairman will reach out to retailers
Michael Sweeney, the in-coming Chairman of The Giftware Association, is set to broaden further the assistance which the organisation provides to gift and home retailers.
“It’s a lonely business these days being an independent gift retailer. It isn’t easy. Shops around the country are suffering from a number of different issues – rent, stock, lack of financial support from the banks – my aim will be to try to help make their life easier and more pleasant,” he says.
So how can this be done? “It’s all about providing help and advice. The GA team is very knowledgeable but they also have access to a National Committee all of whom have their own areas of expertise. So if members – retailers or suppliers - have a question, although we may not be able to answer it immediately, we will always know someone who can and will be able to get back them to with strong, practical assistance,” he says.
Michael, whose own career spans all levels of the gift and home supply chain, with periods spent in manufacturing, distributing and retailing, is certainly well-placed to provide some fascinating insights into all aspects of the industry.
On leaving school at just fifteen he joined a firm of Masonic and manufacturing jewellers in his native Kent as an apprentice, with a view to learning the trade of a goldsmith.
However work on the jeweller’s bench was not for him, although it has he says given him a real understanding of the production process. He soon branched out into selling (which remains his great love) to work for the now notorious Gerald Ratner. “It was in the pre-prawn sandwich days when Gerald had a jewellery shop in just about every town in England. I was a branch manager at just 19 and it taught me a great deal, but mostly how to take down and put up ‘discount’ posters” he says.
Further retailing experience followed with a spell at the luxury end of the market selling jewellery to, as he himself puts it, “the high rollers and the rock stars” at Andre Bogaert Jewellery in Sloane Street, London. It was here that Michael’s undoubted entrepreneurial abilities first surfaced. Encouraged by his boss, he began to run a little trading business on the side buying and selling accessories and watches. “My boss used to buy from me himself,” he says.
It was through this enterprise that he first crossed paths with another retail ‘great’ – George Davis, to whom he was also selling goods. George soon approached him to help run the non-clothing side of Next, which he did for some two and half years before the siren call of running his own business became too strong and he left to set up ‘The Worldwide Company’ in 1990, with his business partner Jonathan Pooley, selling giftware, stationery and novelty products, designed in the UK and made in China.
The Worldwide Company thrived and was shortly followed, in 1992, by Natural Products. This was originally devised as a distributorship for the popular L’Occitaine fragranced products brand, which the company represented for some five years before its French parent business decided to establish its own UK base. Natural Products moved on to, amongst other things, creating bespoke products for high street retailers around the world.
The two companies employ some 30 people in West London and a further seven at their offices in the USA.
“I’ve always been fascinated by how companies grow and how large and successful businesses maintain their position,” Michael told me. “The GA’s main interest must be in helping businesses, especially smaller ones, to expand. We all have a common aim to sell as much as we can and our job is to try and help our members avoid mistakes along the way.
“The association already provides really practical help with a range of services on legal matters, insurance and credit card issues but it’s more than that. I recently spent time talking with a member who wanted to know how to negotiate with a distributor. Asking someone who knows can save you time and time is money.”
So what does Michael do when he isn’t trawling the world for new products or ideas?
“I come from a very artistic family and my passion is 20th century British art, which I collect, so visiting galleries and exhibitions is my way of relaxing,” he says.
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