If you follow us on Instagram, you may have already seen that July was hectic.
It wasn't all bad but it was VERY stressful.
At Leftbians, we like to be transparent about everything so we wanted to share with you what running a small, queer-owned jewellery business actually looks like in real terms by running you through what a month in our life looked like
Let's start with the good news though, we shipped over 300 orders in July!
PLUS we sent out another HUGE restock to Queer Britain museum in London as well as a smaller restock to one of our other stockists, Mimo, in Brighton.
We cannot overstate how grateful we are, despite the cost of living still being ridiculously high and tariffs making imports more expensive, you all still show up and buy from and support our small queer business every single month and it means the ABSOLUTE WORLD.
Then there's the behind the scenes things that take up WAY too of a small business owners time!
This includes, marketing, taxes and keeping up with CONSTANT legal changes
Meta ads continue to be a love-hate relationship, some days they bring in loads of new customers who would not have found us otherwise and other days they just eat the budget and show it to bots lol.
On top of that, The EU and USA both introduced new tariffs to UK imports which started in July as well.
So, if you live in the USA or the EU and you have noticed a change in our prices, this will be why, thank you for still shopping with us despite these extra fees, it really really means a lot.
Last but not least, taxes.
Small businesses get taxed into oblivion, which makes it incredibly hard to grow a small business in the UK. Now, i am not against taxes (i'm a communist, you idiot), i hope you got the reference to that haha 😅
But the majority of the burden should always fall on the largest businesses when it comes to taxes, however the bigger the business, the more tax you avoid through loopholes and tax havens. 😒
Therefore way too much of July has been spent trying to work out these taxes so we can continue to run the business and actually pay ourselves!
Despite all this, the end of our month was something to celebrate.
We launched our mini collection and honestly the response to it really cheered us up after a very stressful month!
We done hardly any marketing before the launch (due all the other things that were happening) so we did not expect any sales straight away, so when we launched, I was shocked and so happy that people were buying straight away and all into the weekend, it really made us so happy.
Thank you all SO MUCH
If you haven't had a chance to have a look at our new items then you can check them out via the link below
So that was our July, very chaotic, infuriating, and with very few "wins" but thank you so much for being with us throughout it all, your support helps us keep going even when it feels impossible to!
Hopefully August brings a little less stress and a lot more fun 😅
Leftbians is a lesbian-owned business creating unapologetically queer jewellery and art.
Whether you're looking for a subtle piece inspired by queer history to honour the legacy of those who came before us, or jewellery that celebrates your identity and shows solidarity with the wider LGBTQ+ community, you will be sure to find it here.
Visit our store via the link below
The Author: Jade Evangeline
Jade is one half of the Leftbians team and the writer behind many of our history and culture articles. With a passion for queer history, punk subculture, and communist politics they love to research and uncover the stories of people and movements who challenged the status quo.