Name: Emma Puddick
Company: Emma Puddick Pottery
Based: Bristol
Trade: Hand crafted pottery
Trading since: 2019
Stopped selling to the EU?: Yes
Estimate of business lost: 2%
Government communication?: None - found out on social media
First heard about GPSR: Mid-November 2024
Have you been contacted by customers in the EU?: Yes
MP: Damien Egan - Bristol North East (Labour)
Emma's story in her own words:
"I can't afford to have agents in other countries, I don't have enough turnover across Europe to invest in that sort of stuff. Whereas obviously the larger businesses, it's probably something that is worthwhile and is an investment. So you just have to make the decision to turn it off. And I think the real big kicker about it is that it means I also can't ship to Northern Ireland. Which is insane.”
"I need to be really hyper aware of how I spend my time. Spending say, a day in a month working out how I'm going to send to places that don't often buy could be better spent in marketing or PR or something to grow the business in the UK.”
"I would rather wait until something more established comes along, than, you know, someone maybe trying to make a bit of a quick buck out of people's desperation.”
“I suppose on a kind of personal level as well, the sort of drive, energy, enthusiasm it takes to run a business and make it a living - the cost-of-living crisis has really started to make itself felt. There's challenge after challenge after challenge, and at some point you do run out of resilience and you do need to make choices about how you spend your working hours and what impact running a small business has on your life"