Happy New Year Everyone🥳

We hope you all had a lovely time over the holiday period with your loved ones!

Blog Introduction from Miri:

New Year brings a whole bag of emotions to the table for dinner: sadness that the holiday period is well and truly over, fear for the year ahead and all the decisions that you will face, excitement for new opportunities and a fresh start. It's hard not to feel completely overwhelmed.

But New Year time also brings an opportunity to be reflective over the last 12 months of your life and be proud of how far you have come, even if it is by taking one step further forward than you were before. You can look back on the whole picture of the year, see the highs and the lows, the concerts you attended, the memories you made, and be thankful that you've made it through.

So, in spirit of this... we, at Lilakshop, thought we would reflect on the last year of all of our lives - 2024: The Story of our UK K-Pop Shop! 

January:

Lilak Look Out:

All of my Sound of Music fans will know that starting at the very beginning is a VERY good place to start, and is often the smartest way of doing a yearly wrap up.

As we wanted to start the year with a bang, we uploaded our very own take on Stray Kids' "STEPOUT" videos - "Lilak Look Out" - where we highlighted some of our goals for the year. This included new candle ranges, to introducing skincare to our shop, and even opening our physical shop in Shrewsbury. 

It was a really exciting and motivating start to our 2024 as we, as a team, had goals to strive towards, and you, as our customers and friends, had events to look forward to. 

Introducing Amelie:

We also kicked off the New Year last year by introducing our newest team member, Amelie, and basking in the exciting news that our team at Lilakshop was expanding and had become a team of 4.

Amelie, our lovely photographer, still works alongside us today and is completely responsible for all the grid photographs you see on our social media and the individual product photographs on our website. 

She has been a tremendous asset to our team here at Lilakshop and we love working alongside her.

Lilakshop turned 1!!:

Happy Birthday to us, Happy Birthday to us, Happy Birthday dear Lilakshop, Happy Birthday to us!!

Yes, on January 20th 2024, Lilakshop turned 1! (I'll try and cover up all the sobbing like a proud parent of our Lilakshop baby).

What a crazy milestone that was for us to hit and we still cannot thank you all enough for the support, friendship, and encouragement you've shown both us and Lilakshop, especially as we now are only 11 days away from hitting our 2nd Birthday!

We celebrated in true K-Pop fan style by spreading the joy to all customers and collectors with a big sale on some of the staff's favourite products: Stray Kids albums, Seventeen, Ateez & more! 

February:

Groups of the Month:

In February, we chose to have 2 groups of the month: Blackpink & Xikers. This allowed us to expand our collection of their discography and bring in more fans into our Lilakshop community. 

Since then, we've created a sizeable community for both of those groups and have been able to stock all of their comebacks and solos, as well as celebrating their birthdays with a discount off online. 

Our Rosé Day sale saw many of you picking up some discounted Blackpink albums & photocards which we hope still are sitting comfortably in your collections at home.

Valentine's Day Candles:

Excited to kick off the year with more of our candles (hand-poured with soy wax in Shrewsbury by our team), we launched our Valentine's Day range. This included "Boy with Luv (BTS)", "Lovesick Girls (Blackpink)" and "Sorry, I love you (Stray Kids)" which were received well. 

They were made in black matte tins which was a first for us, and created a cute, limited edition love-themed range that we hope you all enjoyed. 

If you managed to get your hands on one of these three, let us know in the comments which one was your favourite and if we should bring back one (or all) of the scents!

"Share the Love" Photocard Event:

Rounding off February, we hosted our "Share the Love" photocard event to celebrate Love Month by having selected photocards 50% OFF on our website!! A crazy bargain that many of you enjoyed getting involved in.

We also offered an opportunity for you to buy gifts for your significant other or also just for your best friends, to show them how much you love and appreciate having them in your life. The stories of friendships made through K-Pop and also through our own community discord page were really heartwarming and make everything we do at Lilakshop worthwhile. 

March:

Exciting releases:

While March was a relatively quiet month for events at Lilakshop, there were a number of exciting comebacks and merch releases that shaped the beginning of our year. The notable one being Stray Kids' Magic School merch - a true fan favourite, with the cutest 10cm SKZOO plushies EVER!

We strive to continue to provide all of you with an opportunity to get your hands on sought after merchandise like this but if you have any merch lines that you want us to stock, just send us an email or a dm on our social media and we can look into it.

Cerys turned 23 years old!

Another birthday came up in the Lilakshop household, seeing the owner, Cerys, turn 23 years old. Celebrating in true Cerys fashion, she spent the day grinding away at work, providing the amazing service that she maintains to this day.

But don't worry... she's taking her 24th birthday this year OFF of work! Hooray!

Mystery Livestreams:

Something that played a pivotal role in 2024 were our Mystery Livestreams, later named Secret Sundays. These are livestreams where we often have mystery packs, girl group boxes & boy group boxes available for collectors to get their hands on and try their luck of pulling albums and photocards for a discounted price. 

We later introduced livestreams with this as well as incentives to buy like "Spin the Wheel" and "Lucky Dips" where you could get extra prizes for FREE! 

This was an idea that we implemented in March, kicking off the new year with our mystery products and having lots of fun opening them on livestream with all of you watching in suspense. 

Still, to this day, we don't understand how Cerys has so much luck in getting the pulls you all want... it remains a great mystery!

April:

We're finalists?!

As April came around the corner, we were greeted with some very exciting news - we were FINALISTS for the "Best New Business" award in the Shropshire Chamber's Business Awards 2024. 

At this time, we were still only an online business, - although we were in our business premises and working on the shop for its debut in July - which made this nomination a complete shock for us. It also made Cerys one of the youngest finalist Business Owners EVER and gave us the recognition we deserved in the Shropshire community! (Proud cheer for our lovely Cerys please!!)

Without all of your support and engagement in our online presence, we wouldn't have achieved this, so pat yourselves on the back. We really appreciate each and every one of you.

GOTM Birthday Celebrations:

While the rest of April held a lot of Behind the Scenes work for us at Lilakshop, we still had our Group of the Month - NCT - joining us in our online stock pile. 

After a multitude of requests for us to stock the various NCT sub-units, we got NCT127, & NCT Dream in for you all to enjoy. 

This also allowed us to run a special birthday promotion for the beautiful Jeno where you could get your hands on a 10-15% discount across all of our online products.

May:

Wishlist Feature:

In May we introduced our new 'Wishlist' feature which made our online experience easier for all of you, our customers. This allowed you to save away the products you had your eye on without having to continually search them up. 

It is a feature on our page that many of you love and appreciate, so thank you for using it and giving us ample feedback to provide an overall better customer experience. 

Judges Visit to Lilakshop:

As previously mentioned in April, Lilakshop was a nominated finalist in the Shropshire Chamber Business Awards under the "Best New Business" category. This meant that Cerys had to meet and tour the judges around the Lilakshop office space, explaining the journey of the business and laying out the future plans. 

The judges were incredibly impressed with what Cerys and the team had accomplished with Lilakshop over the year and a half we had been operating, especially as a solely online business at this point in time. They even enjoyed a cuddle from our little Lilakshop pooch, Frida, which may have buttered them up even more!

#PaintTheTownLilak Began...

With a mere 2 months before the launch of our physical shop in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, the team came together to create our 3-step marketing plan to raise our profile and build hype for the opening. 

We created stickers with a QR code linking to our launch page, simply showing an ominous countdown for when the UK was going to be painted a beautiful shade of Lilak. 

You all got involved, putting stickers around your hometowns and cities, spreading the Lilak Fever all across our social media platforms. Discounts were given out to those who participated, making it a fun scavenger hunt for both customers and normal citizens who found them along the way.

June:

Award-winning Lilakshop:

At the half-way point of the year, Cerys and family attended the Shropshire Chamber Business Awards after our finalist nomination back in April. 

Getting all dressed up, Cerys wasn't expecting Lilakshop to win, especially as the other finalists businesses were also amazing and stiff competition to say the least. 

However, when they called the name of the "Best New Business" we went and WON IT! Lilakshop became an award-winning business which is an incredible flex and a moment that all the team were proud of. 

This got us media coverage, with Cerys named as one of Shropshire's youngest award-winning entrepreneurs. 

#PaintTheTownLilak Round 2:

After launching our successful first step to building hype around Lilakshop's physical store opening, we created our second round. This is where the team had placed stickers across some significant cities to our journey as a business and tasked you all with finding them to win some great prizes!

We had Manchester, Glasgow, Crewe and of course, Shrewsbury, where you all hunted high and low for the stickers. This was so much fun & we cannot thank you all enough for getting stuck in!

July:

Miri & Katie Graduated!:

The end of June and start of July was filled with many milestones and achievements for Lilakshop and members of our staff. Two staff members in particular, Miri and Katie, graduated from University, achieving their BA Hons in French, Journalism, Comms & Media with International Study(Miri) and Marketing (Katie). 

This was a big achievement for both of them and we were really proud to be able to share in that moment with them.

Stray Kids at BST Hyde Park:

I'm sure many members of our community know that Stray Kids are Cerys and Miri's ULT group with I.N/Jeongin being both of our ULT biases (it's actually the reason we met & are now best friends, fun fact!). So, when the opportunity to see them headline BST Hyde Park as the first EVER Kpop Boy Group to do so, we jumped & got ourselves all the way down to London.

While festivals aren't usually our thing, we enjoyed every moment of BST Hyde Park and the weather was lovely and warm throughout the entire day. 

We met quite a few of you all, heard NMIXX live as well as Stray Kids and Miri fell in love with Bae... it was an eventful day! It was a great reminder for us to take time to soak in our love for Kpop all over again and celebrate the joy and freedom that loving music brings.

LILAKSHOP PHYSICAL STORE DEBUT!!:

Onto the main act of the year and the highlight of 2024 for all of us at Lilakshop - opening our physical store at 6 Claremont Hill, Shrewsbury, Shropshire.

For upwards of 6-8 months, Cerys, as well as her handy team had been preparing for this weekend and it was finally upon all of us. The week leading up to the opening - July 26th - 28th - so many people were helping at the shop that we were having pizza parties and stocking shelves until 2am just to get it finished in time. 

And every moment of sleep deprivation and stress was worth it as the opening was nothing short of an absolute success. 

Not only did we meet hundreds of you, we had queues outside of our door which piqued the curiosity of local Shrewsbury residents, got to meet many local business owners, and worked alongside Dipp'd to create our very own cookie which we gave away with every purchase during the weekend. Some of you travelled from as far as London & Edinburgh to make it!

It truly was a dream come true and to be able to share it with all of you, as well as having all of our team (at the time) present to share in it was amazing. The elation and happiness we felt then still radiates amongst us as a team today, so thank you to each and every one of you who went out of your way to visit us.

August:

Expanding our staff:

After a hectic but rewarding month in July, we had a quieter August, continuing to meet many of you at the weekends in our physical shop. However, amidst the hustle and bustle that comes with a newly opened shop, we held interviews for 3 new staff members to come on board at Lilakshop. 

Enter in players... Emma, Ruby & Ella!

After some great interviews, we hired our lovely 3 girls to become our new team members. Ella took on the demanding role of Online Order packager, putting her quick packaging skills to good use alongside Cerys up in our office space, while Emma and Ruby were the heads of our physical store team where they serve the customers, stock the shelves, and help you all out with finding what you need when you visit us in Shrewsbury. 

Each one of them have been an asset to our team and now we couldn't imagine working without them. We're incredibly grateful to have them and thankful that all of us merge into the perfect blend of a team - not only as colleagues but as friends. 

Hello82 partners?!:

And when we thought 2024 couldn't get anymore exciting, we were offered the opportunity to become partners with the huge HELLO82 who run Kpop events all across the globe.

This was an amazing achievement for us & one we didn't expect was coming so soon after the opening of our physical store but provided us with the opportunity to sell SIGNED albums to each and every one of you - making collecting even easier while getting Lilakshop's name on the map as a European Hello82 partner!

Since then, this partnership has evolved into being a Pop-up shop for events that Hello82 are running & we're looking forward to whatever comes in the future with them.

September:

Merch lines & successful restocks:

While September was overall a quieter month for special events at Lilakshop, we were working behind the scenes on something exciting that we announced by the time the month was over.

In the meantime, we held 2 very successful restock days where you all got your hands on some sought after photocards, including Red Lights Bang Chan, and even got our first full merch line into the Lilakshop physical store - the Japan Merch. 

Announcing our Cupsleeve:

By the end of September, we announced our exciting news - we were hosting our FIRST EVER CUPSLEEVE EVENT!! This was to celebrate the birthdays of Bang Chan & Lee Know from Stray Kids in October and was aptly named "SKZ ZONE" to follow our Twilight/Halloweeny theme. 

This was yet another milestone that we hit as a team, thinking back to the days we dreamed of hosting events like this, and all of you were as excited as we were.

October:

SKZ ZONE: Our First EVER Cupsleeve event

Our entire October adventure at Lilakshop revolved around the smooth running of our Cupsleeve event on the 18th - 20th of the month. All the team got involved in the process: hanging decorations all evening, meetings with Dipp'd about offering drinks for our event, purchasing decorations, running giveaways & creating the prize box for our "Spin the Wheel". 

It truly was an "all hands on deck" experience for us as a team as we wanted to ensure it was as good of an event as we could put on for all of you who were coming along to celebrate Bang Chan and Lee Know's birthdays. 

And, I don't know why we doubted ourselves and our community because once again you showed up in force, making the experience 100x better for us as a team. We also received many messages & interactions from customers who couldn't make it - don't think that goes unnoticed... it is extremely appreciated!

We had hundreds of entries into our SIGNED Lee Know photocard giveaway, gave massive prizes away including 2 of the special SKZOO plushies and many albums, and had all of you sharing messages of appreciation for the two birthday boys we originally came to celebrate.

It was a special and happy moment and we hope you enjoyed it if you came along. 

November:

ATEEZ Comeback Pop-Up:

Shortly after the success of our cupsleeve event, Hello82 got in touch to ask if we wanted to become an official European Pop up partner and host an exclusive event on release weekend of ATEEZ's album "Golden Hour pt.2". 

Of course, we said yes.

We sold hundreds of pre-orders for their pop-up exclusive albums (which included the exclusive photocards) and were able to get our hands on the albums on release day to ship out to all of you, as well as have in-store to pick up on the day of the event. 

On top of the general excitement that comes with opportunities like this, we were able to run another giveaway for all of our customers - a SIGNED San photocard. 

This was an incredible opportunity for us and we hope that every one of you that came along enjoyed your time.

Black Friday Sales:

Like the year before, we offered some sales in the lead up to Christmas, including a Black Friday Weekend offer where customers who ordered got DOUBLE CROWNS (points) every day. 

This allowed so many of you to begin your Christmas shopping while continuing to support our small business through the holiday period, and we hope to do exciting sales like this in the future - so keep an eye out on our socials!

December:

Secret Sunday Advent Edition:

As we came to the end of the year, we were pushing all of our energy to make it to the Christmas holidays. All hands were on deck, even if many of us felt like we had been hit by a bus (end of year feelings, I'm sure you all relate).

Cerys and Ella hosted our Secret Sunday livestream on December 1st where everyone who ordered got an opportunity to pick a door of our Lilakshop Advent Calendar and win some extra FREE prizes. The perfect opportunity to pick up all those Christmas gifts while having fun hanging out with our team & chatting all things CHRISTMAS. 

SKZ HOP Pre-orders:

Did this catch us completely out of nowhere? Yes, yes it did. But we were given the most exciting Christmas present with the latest SKZ album, "HOP" as well as all of their solos. 

We were able to offer various POB options, leading to hundreds of orders from all of you out there. It was one of our biggest pre-orders to date and we cannot thank you enough for your support. 

While we're still awaiting some of the POB options arriving to us, we have begun working on sending out pre-orders for the Limited, Accordion, Music Korea & Apple Music albums. Cheeky wee update for you if you made it this far in the blog... doubt many of you have kept reading!! (COMMENT "LILAKSHOP SUPREMACY" IF YOU GOT THIS FAR)

Boxing Day Sales:

And finally, to round off our 2024, we wanted to give back to all of you by having a 30% OFF sale on all of our restock photocards. This ran for 4 days over the holiday period & we hope you all got involved, snagging some photocards at a PHENOMENAL price. 

Final thoughts...

I, (Miri), cannot thank you all enough for your support, friendship, and orders which has allowed Lilakshop to thrive throughout 2024 and achieve all of these milestones you've just read through. I hope you truly feel a part of our journey, as you are an integral part of our growth and we love you so much for it. 

While every year has its ups and downs, as well as a tremendous amount of hard work that goes into making things happen, we have had so much fun spending time with you all, getting products in for you to get your hands on, and running events like the opening of our own store. 

I cannot wait to see what 2025 has in store for all of us, not just at Lilakshop but for all of you personally that we get to witness grow alongside of us all because of our shared love for Kpop. 

Here's to 2025... I hope it's the best one yet!

Love, Miri x