Looking ahead to 2026
We are nearly 2 weeks into 2026 and we are taking some time to pause, reflect on last year and look ahead to what we have planned for Berber Leather.
2025 Reflection
2025 for us; like many small businesses in the UK was tough. We are still seeing general negative effects in the economy and increased costs for us and our customers that have an impact on customer spending and our sales. We saw staffing changes in our business and unfortunately had several events that we have attended for years not be the success they once were.
However, it wasn’t all doom and gloom, and we had several new partnerships with large online companies where we began stocking our products and it was great to see our items reach many more new customers via these channels. We also gained many fantastic small businesses not just in the UK but worldwide who have become new stockists of our brand. Big thank you to them.
Grabbing 2026 by the horns
Looking ahead to 2026 we have made a few decisions that will hopefully impact our company for the better. We have scaled back our staffing here at our main office instead, outsourcing work to freelancers whilst we can focus on the important things to our business – getting those orders rights and our outstanding customer service.
We have also decided to cut back on some of the larger events that we have attended in the past. We will not be doing any in person trade events this year for our wholesale customers. We have found year on year there has been a major decrease in footfall with many customers choosing to shop online for their stores, and so that is where we will focus instead.
We are also choosing not to attend The Great Yorkshire Show this year. From a personal point of view, we are immensely sad that this show isn’t working out for us, as we have been attending it for nearly as long as Berber Leather has existed. But the long hours, travel and decrease in sales no longer make it a viable show so we must look elsewhere.
This year we hope to attend smaller shows throughout the summer staying fairly local to our beautiful Yorkshire and North-East base. We will update you as decisions are made!
In 2026 we are looking at increasing our stock levels across the board. As I’m sure some of you know we have had many items sell out and be sold out for many weeks at different times of the year. With all of Berber Leather’s items being handmade, and then shipped from Morocco, our lead times are not quick ones and sometimes our predictions about what we will sell through are wrong. We are hoping to increase the number of items we hold in the UK as well as have more orders placed with our suppliers to have stock constantly coming in.
We have also been in talks about expanding certain Berber Leather lines and although we can’t reveal all yet, I can reveal we will be expanding our tote lines and looking at increasing our range of rattan bags ready for the summer. We are very excited about these new items, make sure to keep an eye on our social media for updates!
Finally we just want to say a big thank you to all our customers and supporters. Those who follow us on social media, read our blogs and make purchases. We couldn’t do this without you, and we hope we will get continued support from you as we go into the next year.