Let the bargain hunting begin - Thursday 20th August! 13. August 2015 Robinsons Equestrian Behind the Scenes, News (0) Our Online and Instore End of Season Sale starts at 9am, Thursday 20th August. We’ve not been shy with our mark downs, so there’s bound to be something in the sale section that you’ve had your eye on for a while, or something that’s simply too good a bargain to turn down. As usual in a sale, stock on some of the items is limited so be quick, as these bargains are going to sell out fast! [More]
Our Leeds Store Will Open… …As Soon As We Announce It! 15. December 2014 Robinsons Equestrian Behind the Scenes (0) Since we announced an intention to open our fifth store in Hunslet, Leeds, we've been inundated with questions about when it'll open. I guess that's not surprising but it's still great to see how warmly we're being welcomed by the local equestrian community. While we've needed a few weeks to turn two bare, empty units into a stunning 15,000 sq ft store, we're very keen not to disappoint all those who can't wait to visit by making our opening any later than we absolutely have to. [More]
The Robinsons Logo: 147 Years of Evolution 11. November 2014 Robinsons Equestrian Behind the Scenes (0) Have you seen our new logo? What do you think? It's designed with the future in mind but we hope you'll agree, it has elements which remain firmly rooted in our past. I appreciate that may not mean much to many of our younger customers but to Marketing bores like me, 'heritage' and other rather pretentious-sounding terms like 'brand value' are quite a big deal, especially when there are changes in the air. We felt it was important to establish some sort of continuity where we could without compromising the change of direction we wanted. [More]
Where Should We Open Our Next Store? 25. June 2014 paul.bentham@robinsons-uk.com Behind the Scenes (0)
In Pics: The ‘Horse’ Photo-shoot for the Autumn/Winter 2013 Catalogue 17. July 2013 paul.bentham@robinsons-uk.com Behind the Scenes (0) The schools may not have even broken up for summer but to us, it's that time when we have to get cracking with our Autumn/Winter catalogue production - and one of the most important bits to get done quickly is the photography! Our winter catalogue photography has always had to take place in the middle of summer and, this being Britain, we never really know what the weather will be like until the day of the shoot. Occasionally, it can be difficult to convey the suitability of a product designed for cold temperatures when it's anything but cold but on a more basic level, any photographer will prefer bright conditions over a dull day – and if it rains, it just makes things even worse. This year, we were blessed with bright sunshine for the shoot of all our new horse-modelled items. We still have some left to do, especially model photography for the 'human' range. Usually, that tends to be a bit smoother than working with horses (but not always!) so what follows is traditionally one of the most unpredictable days of the year. Here's a photographic record of the day, behind the scenes. Enjoy! 8:30 The venue is prepared in accordance with the brief and the requirements of the product which need capturing, for example Stable areas to be cleaned if the photo-shoot involves stable rugs or field is cut if the photo-shoot involves turnout rugs. Meanwhile, the horses are prepared before they leave their home in St. Helens for the 20 mile trip north to the shoot location in Wigan. Ben (bay) and Oakley (coloured) will be this season's stars of the show. 8:30 The buyer arrives first to co-ordinate the receipt of the product and samples which are being photographed. She provides a running order and details of product codes and specific photographic requirements for each item. The product also arrives at the shoot location having been delivered by a member of our warehouse team. Various items are placed in the relevant areas of the shoot location to avoid double handling. 9:00 The photographer arrives (no self-portrait taken, unsurprisingly!) and is given a run down for the day including the products being photographed, the number of horse or ponies, running order and additional specific requirements. 9:30 The first two horses (Ben and Oakley) arrive and are raring to go. Different requirements require different horses and today's models are scheduled to arrive at different times in the day to avoid people and horses being stood around unnecessarily. 10:00 The photo-shoot starts and the products are quickly ticked off the list as the camera starts to capturing the stable and close up images we require. This is Ben. 11:00 We start to alternate horses, in line with the running order, but in the knowledge that they simply start getting bored if they just stand round for too long. This is Oakley. 11:40 It's not exactly glamorous work but any photo-shoot is likely to attract attention, especially from the neighbours! This is Poppy. 12:00 We all take a break – Cup of tea and a net of hay!! 12:30 The next horse arrives, he's called Henry – he's only small but has a big attitude. 12:45 We quickly get the few shots we require of Henry and tick some more products off our list. 1:00 We get some interesting, non-product images of Henry and Ben to use as stock photos before Henry heads off home. 1:45 The real fun starts as Ben is readied for the final few product shots. These involve him running through the field and it can take up to 15 minutes just to get the one image you need of each rug. 2:30 We have everything we need - Ben was a superstar, again. We take his rug off and let him and Oakley relax and enjoy a bit of time together grazing and playing around. 3:00 That's it for the day. We get a quick picture of everyone who helped today. 3:15 Time to get the horses home. Ben and Oakley are loaded up, with a lot less fuss than Henry was! We ensured that the day wasn't too long for them, even if that means that we have to do additional days of photography. 3:30 The wagon leaves and the boys will be back in their own fields within the hour. 3:45 Next, our own transport turns up to collect the product and take it back to HQ. We're that bit closer to getting the catalogue ready to send to you later this year!
The World of the Smaller Catalogues 7. February 2013 paul.bentham@robinsons-uk.com Behind the Scenes (0)
Return of the Cosy Pony! 28. November 2012 paul.bentham@robinsons-uk.com Behind the Scenes (0) We all love a good comeback, don't we? Take That seem to be selling more music and more concert tickets than ever and how else can you describe 'Strictly Come Dancing' other than a turbo-charged, celebrity-filled version of the original, long-running 'Come Dancing'? In the spirit of looking to the past for inspiration, we've decided to re-launch one of our old favourites later this month, the Cosy Pony rug* but first, it may be necessary to remind ourselves what a Cosy Pony even was... Way, way back in 1989, we unleashed a new stable rug specifically for ponies, called the Cosy Pony. In our catalogue that year, we described it as "the quilted rug you've all been waiting for" – complete with a distinctive logo showing a pony in a bed! In its first year, it was only available in navy with red bindings and surcingles, as most quilted rugs seemed to be in those days. At a time when some stable rugs were being offered at upto £70 – around the same price as a top-of-the-range Walkman, The Cosy Pony was yours for £29.96 (for sizes 3'9" to 5'0") or £34.96 (for sizes 5'3" to 5'6") – about the same price as a shell suit. If you're old enough to remember the original Cosy Pony, you'll almost certainly remember what a Walkman and a shell suit both were! Needless to say, the Cosy Pony proved to be a hugely popular product. The no-nonsense design, clever branding and competitive pricing were, not surprisingly, a successful combination. As the 1990s dawned, it became clear that we'd found a fantastic addition to our range. In our 1990 catalogue, you can see that we'd worked hard to develop the idea even further. The logo had been improved, a dog version was added and new colour options of black with fluorescent pink or green were added to the original navy/red. A few months ago, we sent a small team to do a photo shoot in nearby St. Helens and when they got to the location, they were totally surprised to see two ponies walking across the yard wearing their original Cosy Pony Rugs. Over twenty years on, these products were still going strong! That story created something of a spark in our buying office so this winter, we'll be re-introducing the Cosy Pony stable rug to our range once more. They'll be available once again in pony sizes and in the more popular black/fluorescent green and black/fluorescent pink colours – and they'll all be offered at the cheaper 1989 price of £29.96, irrespective of size! Initially, the 2012 Cosy Pony will be offered in one of our forthcoming '16 Deals of Christmas' daily email offers, due to be emailed in December. They'll be almost identical to the original rugs in every way, with their cross surcingles, cotton lining, a 420 denier outer and 220g (or 8oz, as we used to say) filling. Just like Take That, once they're back, it'll be like they've never been away! If you like the product and the price, you could own a faithful replica of one of the most popular products we've ever offered within days of receiving that email! Of course, if you're not currently receiving regular emailed offers, you might miss this and other great offers, particularly between now and Christmas. If you'd like to receive our regular emailed offers, simply go to the 'Email Sign up' page on our website and enter your details! Many of our customers still fondly remember their first Cosy Pony Rug and the pony they bought if for. Maybe today's pony riders will be able to say the same about these products in another twenty years' time… *The 2012 Cosy Pony Rug is available to view now - and add to your wishlist - but it will only be available to purchase when it is featured on one of our daily emailed deals, later this month. Stay tuned to our website to find out which day that is! Other events in 1989: The first of 24 GPS satellites was put into orbit, enabling the concept of satellite navigation to become a reality. 'Rain Man' won the Oscar for Best Picture and one of its stars, Dustin Hoffman won the Oscar for Best Actor. The fall of the Berlin Wall: enabled free movement of Germans from East Germany to West Germany, allowing the eventual re-unification of Germany. Similar revolutions in several other Eastern Bloc countries like Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia. The World Wide Web was invented by Tim Berners-Lee, a British scientist working in Switzerland. The first episode of 'The Simpsons' was aired on the Fox network. For 17 of the 52 weeks of 1989, the Number 1 spot in the UK Singles charts was held by Kylie Minogue, Jason Donovan (or both) and (ahem)… Jive Bunny Milton and John Whitaker became European Showjumping champions at Rotterdam Virginia Leng (née Holgate) won her record fifth title at the Burghley Horse Trials
How 'Antlers for Horses' Became Popular 9. November 2012 paul.bentham@robinsons-uk.com Behind the Scenes (0) Sometimes, the success of something is all about being in the right place at the right time. We could never have predicted the success of such a silly product as the Horse Head Antler which first appeared in a Robinsons catalogue in 1992. This 'silly' product has since stood the test of time and it is likely that not many people have any idea how it all came about. Pauline Bentham, our gift buyer at the time spotted the antlers on a plastic horse's head at a trade fair in Philadelphia, USA. She bought one pair for the princely sum of $10 and brought it back to the UK. She made some improvements to its design and commissioned an order of around a thousand pieces from a local manufacturing company. Over the four weeks prior to Christmas in 1992, we sold over 800 units at around £10 each! With the benefit of this experience and a bit of lateral thinking, we added similar products for the following festive season: 'jingle bell' nosebands and rein sleeves, matching hat covers, exercise sheets and leg wraps all made from bright red and finished with white fur fabric trims. From nowhere, a new and (very) popular collection of inexpensive fun items had been created. The following Christmas, about 5,000 of these 'silly' products (which were exclusive to Robinsons) were sold. We then attempted to wholesale them to distributors in the UK and because they were still perceived as too silly, nobody wanted to take them on despite our huge success. No-one copied the idea for the next two years anywhere in Europe. In 1994 at a trade fair in Germany one of our international buying group partners was arm-twisted into taking a risk. It took promises of a 'sale or return' deal to convince these steely-faced Germans that they had nothing to lose. After the first year of success they placed an order for the next year for over 10,000 units! Today, the Christmas Antlers live on despite the fact that production in the UK had to be terminated and moved to China and the fact that some competition in the market has also sprung up. It's difficult to calculate how much this range made since it was inspired, twenty years ago. It did more than bring a smile to someone's face, it made a statement that Robinsons were innovative and were prepared to offer alternative products which were not always aimed at the serious competitor. It made us look different from our competitors, a difference we've been keen to maintain ever since!