GAIL Fells was heading towards retirement, while daughter Gemma Channing is the mother of three young children. Both were looking to start a business around something they enjoyed doing. ‘We had a love of candles and home fragrances,’ said Gail. ‘We decided to get a candle making kit, basically, and start from Gemma’s home. And it all progressed from there.’
The new business does not just involve the two generations, the name Florence James is from Gail’s late mother, Gemma’s grandmother. ‘She didn’t have any link at all to fragrances but we wanted to involve her,’ said Gail. ‘She loved growing flowers and there were a lot of scents from our childhood that bring back memories as well. We were looking for a name for a long time, to be quite honest, and then someone suggested it and it just seemed to fit into everything else that we were doing.’
The pair had absolutely no prior experience and so the business began with a lot of research, experimenting and testing. When they decided to launch there were no other candle-making companies in Jersey and so they saw a gap in the market.
Gemma is the candle maker while Gail does the marketing and has recently started looking after their new studio shop. With absolutely no business experience, it was a huge learning curve for them both. ‘We just kind of learned as we went along, and Jersey Business gave us lots of advice, such as who to speak to. For example, they gave us the name of the guy who helped to brand our products,’ said Gail.
They credit their business success to starting slowly. ‘We began doing the Christmas markets because we started in November 2014, and then I approached some shops, and we also used social media too,’ said Gail.
They then branched out by finding third-party retailers. You can currently find their products at Jane James, the Harbour Gallery, The Windmill, the Post Office in town and the Lilac Dragonfly at Rozel.
Throughout this time, the pair kept working at their products. ‘As we’ve gone along we’ve adjusted our formulas and just got better and our marketing’s got better,’ said Gail. Since starting in 2014, they made all their products in Gemma’s kitchen. ‘It was taking over her house and mine,’ added Gail. ‘So we thought it’d be lovely to have a base to work from, and to have our own little shop as well, which is tiny, but it works well for us both.’
Their new shop is a small studio at Devil’s Hole, in St Mary’s, opposite The Priory Inn pub. Alongside them are Marc McCarty, from Glassblowing Jersey, and glass worker, Glyn Burton.
Gail and Gemma like to use local suppliers wherever they can to add to their offering. Glyn Burton has supplied glass beads and they asked Mark McCarty to make them something unique for their diffusers, so he created the glass pots which they have on show in the studio. They have also got together with Lilac Dragonfly, in Rozel, who personalise the glasses to go with their gin and tonic candle set.
The studio has allowed Gail and Gemma to connect more closely with their customers. ‘People like coming in to see me on a Saturday when I’m actually making the products that they’re buying,’ said Gemma. In the studio they have the melter, and it’s here that they create the candles. They use a wooden wick rather than a cotton one. ‘It gives a nice subtle crackle,’ said Gail. They have also developed different products including car diffusers and various gift options. such as their teacher ‘thank you’ candles. ‘The highs of running the business include the fact that people want to buy our products and come back again. And it’s just lovely seeing it in the shops and then if you happen to be in a shop and someone picks one up and buys one, well you’re like, “Wow – we created that”.’
Gemma and Gail have invested their own money as well as time into the business. ‘We’ve done it all ourselves,’ said Gail. ‘We put everything back into the company for three or four years before we started taking any wages ourselves. Now we’ve reached that stage where we can take a little bit of money, but we always want to keep improving.’
Their customers are both tourists and local people, Gail explained. ‘The locals are very supportive of us because I think they like to support the local products. Having the shop and the outlets, we get the tourist trade too. Our best time of year, though, is winter with the Christmas gift side of things.’
They have regular customers and both women say they have not had any low points since setting up Florence James. ‘We enjoy doing it so it doesn’t actually feel like a job,’ said Gemma. Gail agreed: ‘We’ve been very lucky and I think the fact that we took it very slowly and didn’t just rush right into it, that’s helped.’
Recently they were chosen by Jacqueline Gold, chief executive of Ann Summers, to be recipients of her #WOW award, a Twitter competition that showcases female entrepreneurs. It has spurred them on and they have further plans. ‘We’d like to export into the UK, or somewhere else if that is possible,’ said Gail. ‘Our products are quite heavy so it’s the postage which is the issue and why we haven’t done too much with the website sales. We like to deliver locally free and go around and do that.’
Gail and Gemma have some advice for anyone thinking of following in their shoes and starting their own business. ‘Do a lot of research and testing of your products and be quite sure of what you’re doing,’ said Gail. ‘Know what market you’re going for,’ added Gemma. ‘At first we were trying to please everybody with different ranges. Now we are more focused.’
