A Monifieth family firm which makes personalised gifts feels that the current cost-of-living crisis has had a bigger financial impact than the Covid pandemic.
Despite the economic challenges, MadeAt94 is being positive and is now looking forward to Christmas opportunities and how to grow next year.
The company designs and manufactures gifts and signs for the home and business-to-business markets.
Kevin and Samantha Matthew started the online venture in 2013.
He was previously a secondary school teacher and part-time university lecturer
Quitting teaching job to start Dundee gifts business
Kevin explained the reasons behind the career change.
He said: “Sam and I are creative and we wanted to design gifts and homeware. Plus it was a better fit into our family and bringing up children, rather than the 9-5 job.
“We didn’t ever think about failing. I continued to do supply teaching, whilst we increased sales.
“It took nine months to get the sales up before I left teaching.”
Kevin said the customer base at MadeAt94 is wide – everyone from dog lovers to people getting married.
The firm, based at New Craigie Road, sells mainly in the UK and US with dog stair stoppers and wedding selfie frames among the most popular items.
But Brexit was not good news for the business.
Kevin said: “We had to stop selling to Europe because the taxes were higher than the value of the goods we were sending ”
He also said the triple hit from Brexit, Covid and then the cost-of-living crisis had been a massive challenge.
“The current cost-of-living crisis has hit harder than Covid in our opinion. People are not spending as much and costs are higher.”
Hopes for a strong end to 2023
The entrepreneur spoke about how competitive the online gift market is.
He said coming up with new ideas is key to being successful. I
He added: “This is why we always try and come up with new different products and routes to market.
“Our diversity is what makes us stand out.
“We spotted the fact that online was becoming more difficult, so we added different offerings such as our light-up LED letter-hiring service.
“We;re the only company in Dundee that offers the whole alphabet and numbers for people to hire out.”
He is looking forward to this Christmas with new product lines on offer – and is hoping for a good sales period.
Conversation