Help us stay afloat and keep making change - 50% off all our stock until midnight Sunday

Kia ora e hoa mā - friends and supporters of LYB

In light of recent events, we wanted to reach out, check in with our wider community and update you all on where we are at. We’ve always held the belief that it's best to operate with transparency and in uncertain times that is now the only approach. 

We are in a unique situation and before anything else we want to extend our empathy and thoughts to everyone currently affected by the Covid-19 pandemic - particularly those who are sick or have loved ones affected. We also want to acknowledge the incredible work being done by healthcare workers and other frontline staff across the globe. You are all amazing.

We’re doing it tough right now - and we need your help

Like many small businesses, everything has changed incredibly quickly for us over the past two weeks. Our primary customer base is the tourism, hospitality, and events industries - the sectors that are hardest hit by Covid-19. As suppliers to these industries, we’re now experiencing the flow on effects of this ourselves with sales dropping significantly.

We couldn’t have seen this coming - and we’ve found ourselves in a spot of bother. Anticipating another year of growth, we invested heavily in our own stock over the past few months. What this means is that right now we’ve got a whole lot of stock on hand ready to sell - but not much cash to pay the bills. In all honesty - we’re currently in a very precarious position. 

As it stands, we are predicting we will have to trade through at least one year of difficulty, and we are working swiftly to implement our business continuity plans. We are also keeping in close contact with our factories - we’re working together to ensure we can do our best to keep supporting impactful and lasting employment to those in one of the world's most vulnerable regions. 

To bring some much-needed cash into the business, we’re offering 50% off all our stock

We’ve never done this before but we’ve also never seen anything like this before. As an organisation we have decided that the best approach is to sell some of our inventory to free up cash so we can continue to support our staff and suppliers. We are therefore providing an unprecedented 50% off our entire retail store (automatically applied at checkout).

We hope you understand this decision and recognise it for what it is: a wish to see our people and our planet thrive, which is more important now than perhaps ever before, and an opportunity to help us keep working at this mission. We’ve tried really, really hard not to participate in things like mass sales (ie Black Friday) as it goes against our core concept of careful and considered purchasing. However, at this time we want to encourage you to invest in quality goods - if you’re able to.

We would love it if you could help us spread the word by sharing with your friends and whanau. As always we're here to answer your questions, and we thank you so much for your support as we navigate these uncharted waters together.

In times of crisis there is one way to get through, and that’s together (even if our ‘togetherness’ must be virtual for a while!). Please also continue to support all small, local and do-good businesses as best you can in whatever shape that is. While we didn’t sit down to enjoy it we have been buying coffee from our local Peoples Coffee and delicious bread from our local bakery Gramercy. We want to ensure that our friends doing great things also make it out the other side! Please share your favourite local businesses in the comments so that we can band together in support of our communities.

In closing look for ways to help, look for reasons to smile, look for the good in the world, and we will look forward to seeing you all on the other side.

Kia kaha

Sam & The Team at LYB