In this episode, we dive into the powerful wave of change sweeping across the retail world as more brands step up to do the right thing. From circular business models and resale platforms to thoughtful retail strategies and new legislation pushing fast fashion to rethink its impact we cover it all.

Whether you're in the industry or just a curious shopper, this conversation breaks down the big shifts and spotlights brands and retailers that are truly leading by example.

Circular Retail Is Booming -

Circularity isn't just a buzzword it's becoming a business imperative. Platforms like Vinted are redefining how consumers shop, pushing mainstream retailers to adapt or risk irrelevance. We explore how the resale and reuse economy is reshaping everything.

-> The Rise of Rental & Pre-Loved: From renting occasion wear to proudly buying pre-loved pieces, the stigma is gone and the demand is real. We chat about the creative ways brands are building loyalty and sustainability through rental services and secondhand offerings. Think fashion with a conscience.

-> Retailers We're Loving Right Now - Shoutout to Positive Retail and The Cirkel and Loved Before brands that are building communities, offering value, and proving that ethical, thoughtful retail can also be stylish and fun. We discuss what sets them apart and why they’re worth keeping an eye on.

Retail News Round-Up -

-> Jellycat’s Strategy Shift- We discuss Jellycat’s bold move to refine their stockist network choosing to support fewer independent retailers more meaningfully, with better brand experiences in-store. Plus, how the Jellycat Café is bringing the brand to life in playful, immersive ways. Perhaps this new strategy opens the door for another brand to step in and find similar success to Jellycat especially with independent retailers continuing to play a key role in helping emerging brands get discovered by consumers.

-> France Takes a Stand on Fast Fashion 🇫🇷- Yes!! France just introduced a new tax targeting fast fashion retailers and we’re here for it! Could this be the start of a global shift toward holding the biggest offenders accountable? We certainly hope so.

💡 Top 3 Takeaways:

1. Circular retail isn't optional anymore it's the future, and every retailer needs to have a strategy.
   
   
2. Consumers are embracing pre-loved and rental more than ever, and brands that adapt will win long-term loyalty.
   
   
3. Sustainability is becoming mainstream, not just a niche, governments, consumers, and brands are all stepping up.

The retail world is being reshaped by purpose, not just profit. From secondhand to strategy, the brands leading this change are doing more than selling—they're setting standards. It’s a reminder that doing the right thing isn’t just ethical, it’s smart business. 👏

✨ Don’t forget to rate, share, and subscribe if this episode inspired you! Tag us with your thoughts we love hearing how you're seeing change in retail too.

#RetailRight #SustainableRetail #CircularFashion

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In this vibrant episode, we sit down with Caitlin and Claire, the designers behind The Outdoor Edit, a bold new Scottish brand reimagining how we design and enjoy our outdoor spaces. With a mission to treat outdoor areas as an extension of the home, The Outdoor Edit brings fresh, trend-led thinking to a market previously dominated by muted tones and safe choices. Their debut range spans everything from parasols and cushions to bistro sets, lighting, and fire pits crafted to work in everything from small balconies to spacious gardens.

We dive into their design journey, exploring how inspiration from Milan and Paris Fashion Weeks, international design fairs like Salone and Maison, and trend platforms such as WGSN and Pantone helped shape their six curated themes. Each one offers a unique personality from the playful, neon-soaked Moments of Joy inspired by Gen Z’s “kidult” culture, to the rich, elegant hues of Dark Bouquet and the soft, grounding neutrals of Coffee Naturals. The result is a range that invites customers to personalise their outdoor spaces just like they would an interior room.

Caitlin and Claire also share how they built the brand from the ground up from mood boards and product design to packaging and the website all with the goal of creating an elevated yet approachable customer experience. And with themes designed to be mixed and matched, there’s flexibility to build a look that’s entirely your own.

Top 3 Takeaways:

1. Outdoor Living is Evolving Post-pandemic, outdoor spaces are no longer afterthoughts they’re now considered integral parts of the home. The Outdoor Edit embraces this shift with trend-driven products that help people express their style outdoors just as they do inside.

1. Design-First Doesn’t Mean Inaccessible. With a strong focus on trend forecasting, The Outdoor Edit ensure their collections are stylish yet practical. Their range is designed to fit all budgets and spaces, from a tiny city balcony to a sprawling garden allowing anyone to update their outdoor look with just a few key accessories.

1. Colour and Personality are In! Out goes grey, in comes bold, joyful colour. The Outdoor Edit champions a move toward vibrant palettes, geometric prints, and expressive design, encouraging customers to be playful and daring in how they curate their outdoor havens.

Whether you’re a seasoned design enthusiast or just looking to refresh your space, this episode is packed with inspiration. Outdoor edit is giving buying and beyond listeners 20% off the range, just use BBEDIT20 at the checkout to redeem. This offer ends on 9th July.

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Welcome to another episode of Buying and Beyond! In this episode it's just us! We’re taking a small break from our guest spots, as we dive into the world of Comp Shops, discussing why they’re essential for staying inspired, spotting trends, and growing creatively in retail - not for copying! We break the myth; trendspotting is about inspiration and evolution, not duplication.

Our recent comp shop took us to the streets of London, walking down Oxford street to see the latest IKEA takeover of the former Topshop space, which felt rather eerie and strange, however the recent news of the standalone stores for the impending Topshop re-brand was a real pick me up! We talk trends, like the buttermilk yellow and boutique branding in mainstream chains, and highlight some of our standout stores, such as the fairly newish roll out of Sostrene Grene and the rise of M&S’s sell out collections.

We also dig into retail news, the shift toward experience-led shopping, and how tech (and even hackers!) are reshaping the industry.

With TALAS’s CEO declaring “we're in the hospitality business” we unpack the new expectations for high street retail, it’s more important than ever for bricks and mortar to provide a customer experience, as transactional shopping is the online offer. What is the reason a customer is coming to your store? It needs to be emotive, tangible, show quality and interaction. We are forever more reliant on technology, which has so many positive outcomes, but it also put us at risk of a more robotic future, and less human sociable interaction.

On which note, a huge thanks to everyone who attended our first networking event! We share how it went, what we learned, and why community is at the heart of everything we’re building - plus, what’s next as we expand this exciting space for industry connection!

🎧 3 Key Takeaways

1. Retail needs to constantly be evolving to stay relevant - Brands like TALAS are showing that retail spaces need more than ever to be lifestyle-driven, experience-led destinations.
   
   
2. Compshops are about creative curiosity - The best retailers draw inspiration from the market without mimicking true innovation happens when ideas are adapted, not duplicated.
   
   
3. Community is retail’s secret weapon - Our first networking event proved the power of connection retailers are craving support, collaboration, and shared experience.

If you want to find out more about us see our links below and also how to sign up for our next event! It’s going to be a gooden!!
Join the waitlist for our next event: https://www.buyingandbeyond.co.uk/event

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Today we’re joined by Rosie Platt, Head of Range & Ecommerce at NOTH. Rosie has a huge amount of retail buying experience working for a wide variety of UK retailers, including Principles, Debenhams, Oasis, Jaeger, River Island, BBC Children in Need and Superdrug. Rosie is a product development buyer at heart, like ourselves. We find out how Rosie got into buying, from taking an online quiz to figure out what she might be interested in, to how she landed her first job at Principles and the journey she’s been on working in very different buying environments.

We hear all about the skills she picked up along the way from fast paced high street fashion, high end fashion shows, the charity sector (all those Pudsey bears!) to marketplace buying. This is a huge episode packed with so many different brands, sharing experiences of what is it REALLY like to work for all these large retailers, and also a sneak peak for retail businesses to understand what goes on behind the scenes.

Rosie describes behind the scene of working at NOTHS from her 8 years experience of onboarding and coaching small product based businesses. Plus she shares her top tips for small businesses looking to partner, or get stocked in a retailer. We ask; what makes a good pitch? Do you need to send samples? What are the key metrics you should be sharing?

This is a must listen episode for any brands wanting some valuable tips on what makes for a great pitch and what market places like NOTH are really looking for. If your a buyer this episode will feel very relatable as we are sure that in Rosies varied career she will touch upon a situation you most likely will of been in and gives her experience and advice on how to get through it.

Our takeaways for this episode are:

- Take a break when you feel close to burn out, it will reframe your perspective. Sometime a side step move is more in keeping with your values and ultimately your happiness. Note: you don't always have to push yourself onto the next thing. Often these breaks still lead you back to climbing the ladder for promotion, so whats the rush?!

- A coaching management style is incredible rewarding - on both sides! It gets the best out of your team by calling out where improvements can be made sharing ways to improve. It might feel a bit uncomfortable at first to get feedback, but it will help your development, and remember it comes from a caring place.

- It's so great to see brands moving at a slower pace and being much more conscious of supply chain. Yes there are numbers to hit, and these are essential to stay afloat, but let's re-frame the way we look at the product and the numbers in a more holistic way, to enable long term growth. If Brands have this at the heart of the business, then customers can buy with a clean conscious. We need to lead the way.

You heard it first hand from Rosie that by 2030 70% of all sales will be on marketplaces... Are you retail ready? Struggling to get in front of buyers like Roise or structure your business to give it the best possible chance? Sign up for our bootcamp and we can help you with all of this! Find out more on our website:

https://www.buyingandbeyond.co.uk/bootcamp

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Today we are joined by Ally Mitchell founder of Ocean Kitchen Scotland a brand that's doing amazing work using recycled plastic found in the ocean. Joining with Ally today is Anna Campbell-Jones, an awarding winning interior design and presenter of Scottish home of the year. Together they are both here to talk about their collaboration of an amazing new swallow wall ornament range.

Ally chats to us all about how he started his brand after his career as a commercial diver, diving all over the world and being involved in dives up in scotland where he saw first hand the devastation of plastic contamination in our oceans. He tells us his story on how this inspired him to start a brand that even he didn't anticipate to have such incredible growth in such a short space of time.

Anna tells us her story as a interior designer for over 35 years, 7 years a judge on Scottish home of the year and Scottish influencer of the year (interiors and design) 2022-23. Anna began to be approached by brands to promote their products. She thought “why dont i make my own products” so she set out to design her own brand of homewares, all made in Scotland and sustainably.

Ally and Anna met whilst speaking at a climate conference in Glasgow, COB 24. They quickly realised they had a lot in common despite one being an North Sea saturation diver who had founded a sustainable pant pot business and the other being a TV presenting interior designer. They met for scones and coffee a couple of weeks later and brainstormed spontaneously from pots to ducks to swallows, deciding to create swallow wall ornaments from Scottish ocean plastic.

There was no plan apart from to collaborate and experiment, launching softly on each of their Instagram accounts these little objects, symbols of hope and home, organically became an overnight sensation

Hear their story from evolution of the concept of the swallow to the design and production process- even collecting the waste themselves on the beach cleans they regularly do together. This story is incredible inspiring and really highlights the power of storytelling and motivation to make an impact on the planet.

Our key takeaways:

• Organic, homegrown ideas often have exceptional potential for rapid growth.
• Collaborations thrive when brands with shared values unite.
• When a product connects with people in different, personal ways, it helps build a loyal customer base that grows with the brand

Ocean swallows are available on both Ally’s and Anna’s Websites, find out more here: https://oceanplasticpots.com/ and https://annacampbelljones.com/

You can also contact via their instagrams @ ocean.kitchen.scotland and annacampbelljones

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Today we’re joined by Shani - Shani has worked for Arcadia, Tesco, Tie Rack and Superdry - all large Uk retailers but with very different buying offices and Shani is here to tell us all about it. It’s a really raw and honest talk about how retail used to be and the stereotypical situations you would hear about in Buying offices.

Katy and Shani met at university studying the same Fashion Retail Buying course (20 years ago!) and lived together at their first jobs in London. We dive into the stories of the struggles, dramas and hilarious moments as they entered the world of buying. We talk about why Shani decided to study at De Montfort and her inspiring lectures Helen Dunn and Pippa Clarkson- what a difference it makes when your taught by someone who has come from industry!

Shani talks us through her career history as she climbed the ladder from a visual merch role at Topshop right through to a Senior Buyer level at Superdry. We talk about how grateful she was to get that first opportunity at Burton (thanks Jane!) after taking a risk to move to London without a job! Shani’s story is a real rollercoaster ride of different retailers departments and demands, as we hear all about the different buying structures she has worked within, how to manage up & down when you land that first promotion, and how to navigate working for a company that does not have any processes!

We hear all about why Shani loved her time in buying from the travelling, the buzz of being able to make some big decision that will make a difference, but most of all the incredible people you meet along the way. They are your tribe, we are all similar in our thinking and determination to succeed with passion and excitement for what we do.

Our key takeaways are:

• Take a risk if it feels comfortable it’s not going to challenge you or change your journey!
• The right balance of Buying AND Merchandising skills is so important for a businesses survival
• Its can be a very uncertain environment as you could be moved around departments at a moments notice, just remember though it's great to challenge yourself with a new category and take it as a compliment your obviously doing something right!

Oh and ALWAYS have biscuits - sign offs, supplier meetings, or toddler tantrums!

If your a buyer listening to this and would love to join us for a chat on the podcast, get in touch- we would love to have you on to share your experience with others to inspire and inform anyone looking to join the wild world of retail buying. Drop us a DM via instagram or send us an email hello@buyingandbeyond.com

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If you've liked this episode please rate, follow, subscribe and share :)
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Follow us @buyingandbeyond on Instagram

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If you'd like to show a little more love, then head here to give us just a little bit *extra* and show us your support :) thank you!

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We couldn’t be more thrilled to kick off Season 5 with such an incredible guest! It was an absolute privilege to have a conversation with the creator behind the wildly popular Instagram account, Life of a Buyer (LOAB). With over 33,000 engaged followers, this account has become a must-follow for anyone in the industry. If you know, you know!

We’ve been eager to get answers to some burning questions we’ve had for LOAB, and guess what? They responded! To keep the mystery alive, Katy will be stepping in to take on the role of LOAB in this episode, as we dive into the insights they’ve shared with us.

We’re chatting about everything from what inspired them to start this account, the most humbling, proud, and rewarding moments of LOAB’s journey to what the future holds. Plus, we’ll talk about the power of collaborative spaces like this one and how it benefits all of us in the industry. You won’t want to miss this one!

Key Takeaways:
1) Don’t sweat the small stuff and the promotions will come
2) We are a very loyal, dedicated community with a bond like no other.
3) The thrill of that best seller still gets me. Seeing someone wearing or using something I’ve helped create and buy, I still love that.

If your a buyer listening to this and would love to join us for a chat on the podcast, get in touch- we would love to have you on to share your experience with others to inspire and inform anyone looking to join the wild world of retail buying. Drop us a DM via instagram or send us an email hello@buyingandbeyond.co.uk

Support the show

If you've liked this episode please rate, follow, subscribe and share :)
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Follow us @buyingandbeyond on Instagram

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In today’s episode, we’re joined by the incredibly inspiring Bex, founder of the beautiful family run jewellery business in the heart of Wilkshire Boho Betty. From a doctor to a business owner, Bex has managed to juggle her growing brand while raising four kids under five! Her story is a testament to resilience, compassion, and the power of kindness in business.

Boho Betty’s designs focus on making every wearer feel good, affordable luxury stylish pieces resonating with so many people. In fact, their first design remains the bestseller to this day—proof that authenticity and staying true to your vision pays off. From selling bracelets in the playground to being listed on QVC, Bex journey is one of hustle, determination, and heart.

One of the most inspiring aspects of Bex story is her kindness project. During the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, Bex and her team gifted bracelets to nurses as a way to show their appreciation. This led to the launch of a community built on kindness, where acts of generosity spread far and wide. Bex shares how her relationship with a very special Lady Nikki, which started through Instagram, sparked the idea of a special necklace in honour of this amazing woman who lost her battle with cancer. With all proceeds going to charity, this piece became a sensation, raising £30k for an incredible cause!

In this episode, we dive deep into the philosophy that drives Boho Betty’s success: Kindness is King. Bex is proof that business doesn’t always have to be about the bottom line. It's about collaboration, compassion, and building a community that shares your values.

Key Takeaways:

• Kindness and Collaboration: Bex's business is built on the power of kindness, with every interaction rooted in compassion and community.
• The Importance of Storytelling: Bex's story of Boho Betty has helped her brand connect with customers and retailers who share the same values. It’s a reminder that storytelling is a powerful tool in building a meaningful brand.
• Navigating Retail: As a small brand, getting into larger retailers can be a challenge, but Bex shares her insights on how to make sure your brand aligns with the right stockists and how international markets can be a great opportunity for growth.
• Customer Service Matters: The importance of communication, customer service, and understanding your audience is crucial for both retailers and end customers. Bex's approach shows that creating lasting relationships is key to sustainable business growth.

Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur or looking to stock a beautiful jewellery, this episode will inspire you to think about business in a new way—where kindness and collaboration truly are the foundation of success.

Make sure to tune in, and don’t forget to check out Boho Betty’s stunning collection of jewellery.

Are you inspired by Bex journey? Let us know in the comments or on social media! Have you experienced the power of kindness in your own business or community? We’d love to hear your stories.

You can check out Boho Betty’s beautiful collection visit www.bohobetty.co.uk or follow her on instagram @bohobettyuk

If your a brand tha

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