Now that we’re in the second half of 2021, LicensingSource catches up with a selection of licensees to find out how the year has been for them so far, their big challenges and successes and the hopes they have for the remainder of the year.
Today: Rob Broadhurst, sales and licensing, Aykroyd & Sons
“As we navigated our way through the first half of this year, delivering on an extremely strong SS21 programme and building our biggest ever AW order book, the outlook was extremely positive, but tinged with caution due to the ever growing noise around container availability and prices – especially as we are still predominantly a landed supplier, which ironically is usually a strategic advantage for us and our retail partners.
So far we are trying to manage/mitigate this in collaboration with our retailers, but it’s proving somewhat difficult as the situation is so volatile. In essence we won’t know until the end of the season what the actual impact has been.
In effect we are sat in a similar position to where we were this time a year ago – the demand is clearly there for licensed apparel, our order book is testament to this, and the outlook is still clearly positive but we once again find that factors beyond our control are having a huge effect on getting product on to shelves to satisfy that demand.”
This feature originally appeared in the summer 2021 edition of Licensing Source Book. To read the full publication, click on this link.
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