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Five Minutes With...Lauren Shields

Oct 25, 2022|

In ‘Five Minutes With…’ we share the stories of our Bisley colleagues and business partners, allowing you to get to know them a little better. In this feature, we talk to Lauren Shields, our Digital Marketing and E-Commerce Executive to discuss emerging trends and Bisley’s venture into the home markets.

Tell us a little bit about your role at Bisley.

The E-Commerce division at Bisley is still in its infancy, meaning there is huge scope for growth and development.

One of the main objectives that I thoroughly enjoy is finding ways to enhance and grow our fantastic brand. This involves considering how we reach a wider consumer audience that might not have heard of us before and developing strategies around that.

These solutions can range from creating and developing trending products for the home market, finding other brands to retail our products to expand and strengthen our brand value, maximising digital marketing streams to convert traffic into sales, curating and styling photoshoots to launch new products in a forward-thinking way, or working with influencers who are well known and trusted to help promote the benefits of our products.

This allows us to progress further in a very competitive market, while capitalising on our strengths as a British manufacturer of premium, sustainable furniture.

What trends did you see emerging after the pandemic and how do you think these have impacted Bisley?

Of course, we were all affected by the pandemic in lots of different ways. The most relevant change for a lot of us was starting to work from home, whether that was setting up at home full-time or hybrid working.

The biggest trend that I feel emerged was how businesses adapted to working from home. At first, this felt like a very temporary measure, but as time has progressed, it has become part of our everyday working set up, and people are slowly but surely recognising the importance of creating a dedicated, fully functioning working environment at home. This means that now, people are investing in home office furniture that is built sustainably, is durable, and that reflects their home’s décor. If it’s going to have some permanence, then it’s worth investing in to get something that you truly love.

One of my favourite quotes is from William Morris; “Have nothing in your home that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful”. This really resonates with us as we strive to create furniture that is not only useful but also beautiful.

What do you think about Bisley’s venture into the home market?

I believe that this is a fantastic opportunity for us to discover a whole new audience that don’t already know us but will certainly buy into our heritage, expertise, and brand values.

It also gives us great scope to maximise our strengths and create new, exciting products that are trend led and slightly different from our norm. There is certainly room for us to grow and establish ourselves as a household brand, that is modern and new - it’s a very exciting time for us!

We have recently joined forces with John Lewis and have already seen great success with reaching their audience who recognise our brand synergy. It’s a huge step forward for us as a business and a partnership that I think will thrive and support our move into the home market.

How important do you think influencers are to the promotion of new products and what do you enjoy most about working with them?

Influencers are a great way for us to gain exposure to an audience who are already engaged and feel they can trust the recommendations put to them.

The content often is in the style of the influencer and is placed in their home, which we then find is repeated in other materials they produce too, so has longevity and not just the initial highlight. We are constantly looking at new and different influencers to work with, whether they are crafters, DIYers, stylists, interior designers or dooer uppers. They all see value in our products and most importantly, use our products to support them in what they are best known for.

What do you think the future holds for the Bisley Shop and what do you hope to achieve?

I think the Bisley Shop has a very exciting and positive future - it’s a new channel for us where there is lots of room to grow and experiment with new ideas and products.

Our audience is very loyal and I feel that they are on the journey with us. Because we’re currently establishing ourselves within the home market, we can experiment and have fun with it and be led by trends that we feel play to our advantage, whether that’s choosing the next big colour or working with materials that are up and coming. The world is our oyster and that is the most thrilling part.

Do you have a favourite product and why?

I have several products that I adore; MultiDesk, Desktop MultiDrawer, Glide, Shadow, and Pebble, to name a few.

Pebble is a very special product to me as it is the first product that I have worked on, which has significance in us carving our channel into the home market. However, I think the new home lockers capsule collection that we are currently working on is going to be my standout favourite - it’s launching this autumn and is going to be very different for us, but exactly where we should be.

What do you do to switch off after a day at Bisley?

Nothing special but simple nice things, like driving through the countryside in the sunshine with a great playlist, either cooking something delicious with my boyfriend or going out with friends for dinner. I’ve also just moved in to a new house, so my evenings are spent decorating, which I love!

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