It's easy to want to grow.
Knowing when it's the right time is the hard part.
Deciding to open another store isn't just about finding the right unit or
having the confidence to take the leap.
It's about knowing whether the business you have now is actually
ready to support what comes next.
Today I'm joined by Sarah Holmes, a multiple shop owner in northeast
Scotland who's grown from one store, pencil me in to two csca, and then
from two to three task in hand.
And what I really wanted to explore with Sarah isn't just what she did,
but how she knew it was the right time.
In this conversation, we are unpacking how you figure out whether adding another
shop makes sense for your business.
How buying changes when you're buying for more than one store, and the practical
things you need to be thinking about as you move from running a single
shop to managing multiple locations.
So if you are listening with one shop and thinking, could there be more?
Or you are already juggling more than one and want to make it feel simpler,
you'll get a lot from this episode.
Or if you've ever considered opening a bricks and mortar
store in the first place.
Sarah, so starting 2026 with three shops.
do you wanna just tell us the story about how you went from one shop to three?
Yeah.
So one shop number one was born just outta a complete love of stationary.
And wanting to get outta a like, corporate toxic workplace, that old
tale that we've heard so many times.
So that's where Penn came from.
Wasn't so much a gap in the market or anything strategic.
it was just, I really want to be a shopkeeper and this is what I like
buying and what I'm passionate about.
So let's see if that'll transcribe.
Which is cool 'cause it's 10 years old this year, so that's obviously,
uh, linking in with some people.
Shop number two, which is Sea Gear, so that's three years old.
This year it's two doors up for pencil me in.
So it was a bit more of a strategic move.
I had like a vain idea that I wanted another shop and I did a
business growth course with one of the universities up here part-time.
And, and I used having a second shop as like the project.
And it did actually come out as something viable.
So I was like, oh wow.
Cool.
So we kind of got on with that because, you know, where I was
going to the trade shows and I'm seeing all of this other product
that is not available where I live.
So I was like, okay, we could open a second shop.
It's exactly the same customer base, so we've already got that customer base.
It's quite low risk, obviously the money you're paying into it, but
I was like, it's worth a gamble.
So that felt like it was a much, much more of a business move.
And also I feel like having more shops in the location gives
people more reason to visit.
like locally where we were, a lot of the premises were being used for hospitality.
And I'm kind of of the opinion that you would go to a town if it had like
five shops or one cafe you wanna go to.
You wouldn't necessarily go to a town that had five different
cafes because you're not
probably gonna go to five different places to eat.
So the more shops, more interesting shops, the better.
So we snapped it up and open seas here and that's been going great guns, and it's
now kind of washing its face shall we say.
And it's really handy being right next, like right next door.
Yeah, for sure.
And is it, and presumably it's more than of a, that's the gifting
side
So it's home and gift.
Yeah, pretty much.
I had wanted to do much more sort of home hardware, utility side of things,
but very much the feedback from the customers that were coming in was
they were really excited about having a new gift store and I was like, oh.
So we have very much led into that, but still with kind of our values at the core.
But we stock the brush, a really big great brush collection there
and that has been a bit of a passion of mine alongside stationery.
So shop number three, we've been trying to work towards for a while 'cause I
wanted to create a brush door, and we missed out on, there's not very many
other small units we're in Elgin.
And I was kind of hoping to get another small unit near those three.
And then we would just pulled the brushes out, went hardware in
there, and that would've been a nice little state of Holmes Village.
Hella on your hide?
Wash.
Got a dream.
but we just couldn't get a unit.
So the end of August, I've recently moved to a town in northeast called Naan.
so I moved here in the spring and then I saw a shop become available at the end of
August that's been vacant for 15 years.
Oh
the guy had been selling it but didn't really wanna sell it type situation.
Yeah.
But eventually did sell it, and then person that's bought it with
the flat upstairs didn't want the shop, so they were leasing it out.
Now I actually looked at the shop in 2022 when we were looking
for C Scare, so I was like, oh.
And it's a huge space, so it's way bigger than either of the other shops.
So I was like, it's quite a bit bigger than what I was thinking, but it
would give me that brush up dreams.
so that's, we've gone in with a niche of brushes there at task at hand.
That's shop number three.
So it opened on the 8th of November, so it was busting a gut
to get that open so we could make the most of the Christmas trade.
Yes.
Uh, I loved all of the content you did on social around that.
You were like, let's see if I could open this shop in 28 days or something like
I like regretted having to like record it all and then edit it all
because it was like so hardcore.
there is a bit of a gap in the market in there and for that type of shop, and
that's has matched the feedback that we've had so far, which is really great.
So I I'm really positive about how that's kind of opened and how that's going.
But obviously quarter one is always a complete unknown and
very quiet, which we're kind of living through at the moment.
So we'll see how that goes.
What's important here isn't the number of shops, it's the pacing.
Each step only happened once.
The previous one had proved it could stand on its own in approach.
That is all about discipline, not caution.
how far is Ner from Elgin?
Like how far are the shops apart from each other now?
it's about a 30, 35 minute drive on the main road that kind of connects everything
up here or like 25 minutes on the train.
So it kind of far enough away to be a different customer base, but also
close enough that people from our existing customers in Elgan would come
through to for the day and vice versa.
And on the run up.
Had opening a lot of people from then went to Elgin to see our other stores
to see kind of what it was about.
And, and a lot of people in there already knew of us at Pennsylvania as well.
So that was great.
Sort of reputation wise.
But RN is a very touristy town, so there's got a huge big holiday park.
There's lots of holiday lets here.
So we've got an incredible beach.
lots of great things.
So I'm really interested how that's gonna pan out in the summer.
And how busy we could be over that time and what those
people will wanna buy as well.
So yeah, I'm intrigued to see how that's gonna go.
This is the part of growth that gets skipped in most success stories.
You don't feel relief when you open.
You feel exposure.
You've made the call, spent the money gone public, and now the
business has to back you up.
Being able to tolerate that phase is a real skill that Sarah
obviously has in abundance.
how does that compare to Elgin then?
How tourist does Elgin get?
So Elgan is touristy, so, we're on the sort of cusp of space, which is one of
the biggest whiskey regions in Scotland.
So you get a lot of whiskey tourists.
we're also on the other side of Elgin is the Murray Coast, which is very touristy.
It's still a bit of an unknown holiday destination.
It's also quite difficult to get here due to the road networks.
Like there's hardly Joel Caries or there's no more ways.
it could be a lot more popular.
So it is touristy, but mainly we do find that it's a lot of people that come here
every year on holiday and therefore they will come in, like there'll be an annual
visit into pen to get some stationary, that sort of thing, which is lovely.
Yeah, near is much more the tourist destination because we're closer to
Inverness, which is the Highland capital.
So it's like 20 minute drive from there.
So people come here for the beach.
You know, the ice cream tacos.
Yeah.
It's got a good reputation.
So we're hoping to jump into that a little bit.
This is where multi-location retail stops being.
Theoretical distance changes, how often people visit tourism changes,
why they visit, and once those things are different, the shops
can't all play the same role.
Trying to force.
That is where friction creeps in.
Once you move beyond one location, clarity matters more than creativity.
Each shop needs a job to do, not just in your head, but in the customers.
Without that, you don't get growth.
You get dilution.
There are two real growth skills underneath this.
The first is clarity, being clear on why people come into your shop and giving
them a reason to show up that isn't just I fancy to browse because browsing
on its own doesn't pay the rent, and it certainly doesn't support growth.
The second is learning how to grow through testing.
When you add a new location, you're taking on something new and the
skill is starting with a hypothesis, testing it deliberately and paying
attention to what actually happens.
That's how expansion becomes a learning engine rather than a drain.
You test.
You learn and you feed what works back into the rest of the business.
So growth strengthens you instead of stretching you thin.
I managed, stationery and art for paper chase and that
included, they had these big.
On the flagship stores.
They had Totten Court Road, Glasgow, Manchester, and they
had these huge art sections.
So,
I used to shop the one in Manchester, so I'm very with
exactly what you're talking about.
Yeah.
arts is really wild because it's so, there's just so many different things,
you know, so, so it's like, yeah.
Finding is kind of like.
There's so different niches.
It's kind of working out which one you want to go into, because you
can, you can fill a whole floor, a giant floor like that, right?
It's so,
So it's kind of touching it too hard on,
This is a useful reality.
Check Art supplies is one of those categories where you could buy more
and more, add more ranges, talk about it endlessly, and still feel like
you've barely scratched the surface.
The way you avoid spreading yourself too thin isn't by trying to stock everything,
it's by taking a point of view.
Because the real power in a category like art supplies isn't volume.
It's creation.
Deciding which part of the category you're gonna be known for, and being
confident enough to say no to the rest.
so you've had a starting point then.
So when you started with the third store, it was like this opening stock package,
as we would call it, back when I worked in big retailers, you know, that was
kind of fairly predetermined, right?
Because you knew you wanted to go with the brushes that was like the bit that
you built it around the utility and then you were able to call on the data
that you had from the other two stores to pull in the bestsellers there.
is it more gender neutral, would you say, than the other two shops?
I mean, sea gear's very more feminine because it's, you know, it's got socks
and, and gloves and all stuff going on.
I actually wanted CC to be quite gender neutral, but that's just
not what the customer wanted and you have to lean into that.
But there's, I feel like that's already covered in nrn.
So I don't need to go into that.
So it's kind of, it's really driving to give NRN something different,
but also to give my elgan customers a reason to come over and like, see
what we're doing differently here.
we've got trade shows coming up.
That's going to be the exciting part is now see, because I haven't been to
a changeable since we Oh, open task or even thought about opening it.
So it's like, okay, what can I go and get now that's gonna even
improve that, that shop even more.
but like on the brushes, I went down, so the distributor for the brushes, they have
their own brush shot in Burford and the
Cowa, and they're now making a bit of a move on TikTok,
which is really interesting.
They've got the best presenter for it or genuine anyone to
look up brush shop on TikTok.
So I, I went down and went to visit the shop so I could see exactly how they were
retailing it, because obviously I've seen how they wholesale it, but I was like,
I need to see how you're retailing this.
and the space is quite small, but it was really great to go
in, see what's happening, and we've kind of taken inspiration
from that for a little bit of it.
Um.
And then also find out what they're doing as a business for their
marketing, which then also impacts on kind of how I will market my side of
things and with the brushes, because we're hoping to be the brush shop.
So Pennsylvania is known as the pencil shop,
and we're hoping to take tasks to be the brush shop.
And, and we've actually, you know, we've bought the domain of the brush hub.
I've had that for about 18 months down.
So we're hoping to play on that and, and work that into a bit of a niche Locally
is kind of in the north of Scotland.
Positioning isn't about vibe, it's about expectation.
Before a customer even touches a product, they've already decided
what You're good for that decision.
Shapes, trust, frequency, and spend, especially once you're
running more than one shop.
when you talked about them going for it on TikTok, are they using this, the physical
retail space for their presenting?
it's really good.
I urge you to go like,
cleaning content
yeah.
Oh yeah, massively.
so Victoria who works in the shop, is from the Cowa and she's lovely, a bit
posh, and she just presents so well.
Different brushes and is to talk about them because she's got
so much experience with them.
So, no, it's, it's a great watch.
that was one of my retail trends for the years, the whole shopping and
as entertainment and I think that, that, that's really interesting.
This is where retailer marketing stop being separate.
If the shop itself is part of the story, you're not constantly chasing attention.
You're building familiarity and familiarity is what brings people back.
Trade shows are dangerous when you're growing.
And why is that?
It's because everything feels possible and possibility unchecked
gets expensive very quickly.
so let's talk about trade shows a little bit then, because I wanted
to dig into kind of when you go into a trade show, which can be quite
overwhelming, and you're seeing all of these different products.
It sounds like you have a really clear, almost filter in your head,
like, that's a pencil me product.
That's a CCARE product.
That is a task in hand product.
Do you find that because you've almost got this theme for each shop, that it does
make it pretty straightforward or do you see products that you think, oh, actually
I think this could work in all three.
How do you even organize that
I kind of can just look at a product and think, okay, that'll work well
across probably task and CC for example.
We're not putting anything pink or lilac into task.
There's a lot of female stationery that sells brilliantly, but.
we went through Pennsylvania the other day and cleared eye that works
with me and we were like, we need to get back a little bit to the utility
function of stationary and making sure that everything is very useful.
And 'cause sometimes it can be easy when you're trying to fill the shop
for Christmas to get a bit ry a little bit into, oh yeah, let's get
that because it'll be good for this.
But then it just hasn't sold at all
and it's just like, okay, did we merchandise that?
Right?
So.
Before we do the trade shows, 'cause obviously January there's so many
to, go to we usually do a walkthrough round all the shops and say this is
how we want to develop this area.
Or it would be really good if we had a new collection or a new type of
product that would fill this area because it's been quite awkward
to merchandise, which is an issue.
We've got csco right now.
So we kind of walk around and there there's obvious things
that you know, you're gonna buy.
Like, I'm gonna go to the brush stand and see what's new for 2026,
that sort of thing.
And you do go to see people, you know, sell well for you and you
say, okay, what what have you got?
That's new because it's so great to be able to bring in, this is new from
this person, this is new, et cetera.
Because that's obviously makes good content and good reason for your
customers to come in to see new things.
And yeah, sometimes it is as boring as like walking the show lane for lane to
say, you know what, is there anything that we've missed here that could work?
interested to see how that's gonna work for Task in Hand, like we're
really interested in bringing in Traveler's Company, which is quite a
sort of niche stationary collection.
And you have to apply to Stock to them and send the pictures of
your store and stuff like that.
So we're looking at that and we're like, okay, we're definitely
gonna bring that task in hand.
Do we bring it in at Pen Some in as well?
And it's kind of just seeing if it's gonna be right for the customer.
Good.
Buying isn't just about having a good eye.
It's about having a strong filter and being comfortable walking past
things that don't earn their place on your shelves So you kind of
start with the, what's missing?
I mean, how much do you dig into the data for it, or is it more about
like the kind of sense of walking the floor and what you've experienced
I, I usually have a look, especially at the end of December, I have a look at like
who our top brands were, and then I look at where our sales were, and then I look
at how much space they've got in store
and I say, okay, well if that was such a great seller, if
I gave it a bit more space.
Would we sell more of it?
And like, are we able to experiment in that way?
So for example, at task in hand, 25% of our sales are coming from brushes.
I'm planning to expand that anyway, but it's just like, okay, well let's go and
look at what we can expand that with.
And then what also joins in with that product.
What else?
Because we've got a pick and mix table of brushes and it's just like,
well, what other products could also be on this pick and mix table?
Because it's not just brushes, it could be other household stuff too.
And then, you know, soaps at Seas, gear sell really well.
So it's like, okay, what if we gave over another shelf and
just filled that with soap?
would that increase our sales?
Would they stay the same?
So there's a lot bit of experimenting that'll probably
go on,
in the sort of first three, four months of the year, you know, your.
Checking that that's not gonna be too much a cash risk as well.
So you don't wanna put too much money into something.
So it's not just that balance of let's experiment here, let's experiment there.
So yeah, we do try and look at the data.
Sometimes, you know, you've been doing it a long time, you just get a gut
feeling for, this will do really well.
And then we, we kind of go for it.
You know, roughly what you want to, we used to do an exercise
sand, something similar.
It was called grow, maintain Decline, which is basically where
we would go through each category and we would say, we wanna grow
this, maintain this, decline this.
So, you know, you might go through it and say, right, we want to grow
brushes, maintain cards, but decline.
You know, if you had to set another product area that just hadn't
worked so well, and then you kind of know where your focuses are.
You know who your best brands are.
So that's pretty straightforward.
You go and see them if they're at the shows, right.
and then I suppose you're just then almost like waiting for that lightning
strike if you're gonna walk up and down and then say, oh, actually, I,
I hadn't even thought of that, but this is this amazing thing that, that
I just know was gonna work perfectly.
I mean at the start of every month.
I pretty much look at all of our bestsellers across the shops, and then
I think, okay, what needs topped up?
And make sure that that's in.
And I think for certainly these first three, four months of the year,
it's really important to have your bestsellers in because that's, it's
probably gonna be your regular local customers that know what you stock that
are gonna be coming in, and you want to make sure you've got what they need.
And then.
You can experiment a little bit more because we've got a little
bit more football footfall.
And then at
Christmas, at Christmas, I always feel like I need to find the thing,
Mm.
the golden star.
so you know, we go, we go Harrogate in July and we go to talk September
and we're always there like, what's it, what's it gonna be?
And we did hit on a couple of things this year, but we got them in a
little bit late, so I'm like, okay, I need to be nailing that this year.
Obviously there was a bit of a distraction last year with opening the new shop,
yeah, but this, like we've reflected on last year and I was like, we
need to go in earlier on Christmas.
Like Christmas trees were going up middle of beginning of November, middle
of November, and I'm like, if you don't have your decorations out now in October.
you, you don't really sell any decorations in December at all.
'cause all the trees are up unless someone's buying maybe one for a gift.
But decoration sales are now heavily in October, November, and we were just
a little bit slow I felt last year.
But that can all be changed for this year.
We still had a, a great sales period, but I was
like, I thought I, I think we could do a little bit better.
The more that people try and split the cost of Christmas.
I think that's the other thing as well, is that they start a bit
earlier and they sort of squirrel some, a few bits away earlier on.
So if you've got it, it doesn't have to be your main focus, but if it's there,
especially if they're picking things up.
when you're buying for more than one shop.
Mistakes don't stay small.
They replicate, they tie up cash.
They steal space from what actually works.
That's why data isn't about being corporate.
It's about protecting your business.
This is the moment where growth gets uncomfortable, because scaling
usually means letting go of the things that made you feel safe.
Like being everywhere, checking everything, holding
it all together yourself.
You have to make an identity shift and start thinking about systems
instead of you as the control.
Otherwise, you risk becoming the bottleneck.
So I'd love to ask you about multiple locations because this is something
that when I talk to people, I talk, you know, I work with a lot of
bricks and mortar stores and some of them have multiple locations.
Some people are in.
One location and would like to open another, but I would say that
the kind of biggest blocker is the kind of loss of control when
you are in your store every day.
Then going to basically, you know, obviously it's about being able to
put your trust in your uh, team.
Interestingly, I spoke to Bird the co-founder of Bird and Blend Tea,
who've now got about 35 stores or something, and he said The hardest
store is your second, because.
It's like once you've had two, you know, you've proven that you can run
one without you being there every day.
So the rest of them seem easier, but I'd love to just know your thoughts
having gone from one to two and then two to three, you know, how,
how do you navigate the transition?
I mean, it all is all in the team and, and who you recruit
to come to come into that team.
And I mean, I'm interviewing this afternoon, so I'll
be reiterating this later.
It's really important to get across like the type of shopping that we are.
We're not CHO shopping, which I know you've spoken about before
on, on the podcast.
We.
Yeah, we're like, and we're an experience.
We're enjoyable.
We should be fun.
We're not a service.
And it's making sure that people understand that so that when
customers are in, it's about enjoying what they're buying and you know,
talking to 'em about it in that way.
It's not really about sell it like hardcore selling, it's about talking
to 'em about the product, adding in helpful information that sort of thing.
But it's also looking at how we work.
some of us that work in the team are very efficient working.
I like to be really busy.
I mean, that's like goldmine.
If you can keep, keep your team busy and like, if they really wanna be busy and,
and to a certain extent it's about letting go, which I think when I speak to a lot of
shopkeepers and they think about opening a second shop, that that's the element.
They're like, oh, I, don't want to let go of this or this or that.
But I think what helped me in the past is I was on maternity leave twice.
I
had to bring in people to run the shop and I, you just have to let go
and you find out the real things that you need to keep control of.
Like, I still do all of the banking, like no one has access to the banking,
but the girls have got access to the de, you know, the card for the account so
they can buy stuff like pencil boxes or raw mail or what, whatever it might be.
So obviously trust is really important.
And luckily in a small business that can flex, Quite easily.
But yeah, I think having that time away gave me a better pinpoint
of what I need to keep control of and actually what I can let go of.
And it's also giving a little bit of freedom to your team so that they can
actually perhaps improve processes
and improve the things that you think you're the only thing,
only person that can do it.
Because I don't do any window displays now.
you know, I discuss that with the team.
We come up with ideas.
Sometimes I'm like, I don't have any ideas, and they, and they just go off to
Pinterest and come back with some ideas.
Sometimes I do, and then they're the ones that kind of execute it or come
up with a few other things to add in.
So that's wonderful.
And they, and like that's a great creative outlet.
Like I want the team to do creative stuff while they're at work because we've
always got, because we have the wholesale site to pencil in of printing pencils.
We always have that to do.
We always have wholesale orders waiting.
And I'm like, I don't want to feel like that is always the number one task.
I want you to do some creative stuff so you're not like, so bored at work
that you're gonna get disengaged and you're gonna wanna leave.
you know, they both do.
We have like a shop iPhone and we have a digital SLR, so they Claire and
Louise mainly both do photography at work, so we have a huge big light box.
So they do flat leaves that I use then in our email marketing on our social media.
Louise Rephotographed every brush so that we could put that on the,
on the website so it was consistent.
So they do all of that stuff as well.
And it's a, yeah, I think it's about opening up what a role could
be as, as a sales assistant, which is such a rubbish title, because
they do so much more than that.
And, and that's what I try and do is give the team.
Other interesting responsibilities that aren't just serving a customer,
cleaning the shop, dealing with a delivery, and try and kind of bring
them on board and, and, you know, bring them to trade shows with me.
So they get to meet all of our suppliers.
They get to see how it's merchandised at the show, and then their mind goes to,
how can I make a display out of this?
Well, I'm like, what's the price point?
What's the margin?
You know, how, how can I make, how many will I buy?
But they're, they're like figuring out how that's gonna look.
which totally takes it off my shoulders.
So there could be real benefits to bringing new people in because they'll
have a completely different insight,
to your business, to, to the shop.
But yeah, it's, it's something to get people to come on board
and like my past experience was running big teams, so I do have that
sort of experience bring into it.
And I think sometimes people are a little bit scared to hire people in case.
I think they're gonna steal from them or, or something, but there's
gotta be that trust.
yeah, it's like, it's how you get to that trust, isn't it?
It's how you make sure that what you need to be done is.
Being done and then that you can then step away and know that you can.
Yeah, it's like building that trust up and how you get to that point.
But no, that's fascinating.
Control doesn't disappear.
As you grow, it becomes selective.
Knowing what not to hold onto is what makes growth sustainable instead
of exhausting So what's next then?
How many more shops?
I was pretty sure that I'm done, but my mate was like, this is just the start.
yeah, I dunno.
Three, three is a lot.
I've still got, you know, my kids are still pretty young.
They're only four and seven, so it's like, how much more
do you wanna add to your to-do list?
And you know, my husband works away most of the time as well, so it's.
It can be a bit frantic behind the scenes, which I don't of, I don't
usually share that side of it because like no one wants to see you on the
school running and stuff like that.
I actually wrote like my pro, we've done a strategy for 2026
and it's got like 53 elements.
I was like, that'll do for this year.
But no, this year's really just about, you know, settling task and
just kind of trying to improve.
We're doing a wholesale trade show.
Pennsylvania, we're doing Harrogate in July, so we've got
that to boost wholesale sales hopefully.
So there's a few
Is that the first time?
No, we've done two others.
So we did the stationary show ages ago,
um, 2022, and then we did top door 2023.
And that was great, but like overwhelmingly great and they kept
phoning me to try and rebook and I was like, I've got PTSD Ts from doing this.
Probably Stop phoning me.
So, so I've only just got right to like book outta the
show 'cause it was so crazy.
And then we're trying to like just build that niche of the brushes.
So that's up here.
There's lots of Highland Games events, so we're booked in to do it, to take
the brushes and do like a highland game stall in the shopping area, just
to kind of get the word out about it and just to test that market as well.
This isn't really a conversation about opening more shops.
It's about understanding what growth actually costs in cash,
in attention, and in energy.
Deciding deliberately whether that version of growth fits the business you
want and the life you want alongside it.
If you wanna find out more about Sarah and the different shops she
mentions in this episode, you'll find all of the links in the show notes.
And what I really love about Sarah's story is that it feels like a
love letter to independent retail.
Each of her shops has its own identity, its own role in the community.
It serves Growth for her hasn't been about cloning one idea again and again.
It's about contributing something meaningful to each place and
working out a way of doing that that actually works for her.
And that's the real takeaway here.
Growth isn't a rule, it's a choice.
And the most important part is making sure it supports the kind
of business you want to run and the kind of life you want to live.
Enjoyed
episode.