Looking Forward

It’s here, our last week in Mona Vale. It conjures up all sorts of emotions. Happy, sad, nostalgic, excited, anxious. I guess all the normal emotions one feels when there is a big change in their life. 

I have felt extremely proud these past few weeks, and very grateful, for the amount of customers who have been in to see us to tell us they are 'shocked that we're leaving', 'disappointed', 'sad', 'where will we go now?'. (and grabbed some amazing bargains too of course). But, I imagined how it would've felt for me to have decided to close and for no one to care! I do feel very lucky. 

Work on our new online store has commenced, and we are thrilled at the amount of support we have had from our Mona Vale customers. It’s tempting to just ride the wave of support and get the online store up and running straight away. But, hopefully our customers will wait for us. The whole point of closing Mona Vale was to give myself a break, so our online store will launch in September/October, complete with a new Summer range.

Sneak Peek of work on our online store

Some customers have come in very concerned that we have had to close because of some funny reasons 'didn't you get enough customers?', 'is it because of the carbon tax?', 'rents are so high these days', 'is it because of online stores? There will be no shops left soon'. Thankfully for Plie, it is none of the above. 

But it got me thinking about small local businesses and how much we need to support them. Its a lot of hard work, and a big commitment. And I know not all of them are as fortunate as we have been. It doesn't take much, just a small purchase, once a week or month. We all like to have great little shops and cafes in our area, it makes our little villages what they are. But we need to support them. We are always sad when they close, and then we realise that we only went in there a couple of times, and it was easier to 'get it when we were at the mall' or 'it was $2 cheaper' somewhere else... we all need to stop doing that. Or there really will be no one left… especially now there is a carbon tax : ) he he he

Closing the shop has been a lot of work! Nearly as much as opening 8 years ago I think... maybe it just feels that way. But, the amount of hard work these past couple of weeks has really cemented my decision and made me really look forward to the next few months as a ‘stay at home Mum’. And with kids as cute as mine, who wouldn’t look forward to that! : )