Friday, May 26, 2006

Greenies...

Well as we're trying to be as ethically aware as we can with this shop we thought we'd get us some of that nice green energy, ya know wind and the like. We it turns out with nPower only 20,000 people can have green energy, and over 40,000 people applied when they launched, so we're boned!

Now you'd think it would be easy to get electricity in this day and age but it took me 9 phone calls and many horrid segments of hold music to find out all we have to do to get electricity is switch on the fuse box! DUH!

Do we measure up?


Yes we do! We dragged ourselves out of the house in the pouring rain at 9.30 this morning to go and measure the shop. We've been scrounging wood from all over the place and we decided we really ought to measure the shop so we can start building stuff, hurrah!

With any luck we might be getting the keys on Tuesday! Huzzah! Now all we need is electricity, water and ultimately customers!

The Lease at Last (at least)

Wa-hoo! We've posted back the lease after getting it looked over and now we're waiting for news, hey no change there then! And I thought it was about time there was a photo of me outside the shop!

Monday, May 22, 2006

So tired, tired of waiting, tired of waiting for...


Well we have the draft lease now and we're doing a lot of looking at it and scratching our heads, fortunetly we have the help of someone that knows about this sorta thing.

Seeing as how are houses are looking more and more like stock rooms it seems to make a strange amount of logical sense that I now have a cash register in my living room!

The clothing tags are now here too, and look VERY fan-dabby-dozey!

Thursday, May 18, 2006

They're herrrrrrreeeeeeeeeeeee

Wa-hoo the stickers just arrived!

They have the web address as knowyourproduct.co.uk and not knowyourproduct.net but if anyone goes to knowyourproduct.co.uk they get taken to knowyourproduct.net anyway so it don't matter! We had to move the site as we were having trouble figuring out where knowyourproduct.co.uk was registered!

Anyhew, if you want a sticker (the design is below) then let us know!

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

tags n tills


It's funny the things we're getting excited about with all the preperations for this shop. Today we spent yet more money, we got a cash till and forged bank note detector (not very anarcho hey) and we ordered our clothing tags! I think you'll all agree, they look shittin' great!

The greatest show on earth!


Otherwise known as 'Rikki's stock check'. Turns out he's got a lot more stuff than he thought!

We've started a rought sorta poll to find out what you want us to stock in the shop, have a butchers here -http://www.punknews.co.uk/forum2/index.php?board=13;action=display;threadid=34459;start=0

Saturday, May 13, 2006

bags, trees and tees!


Wa-hoo! Things are moving on finally, not with the lease but with some pretty smart stuff. The image you see before you will probably be our first tee-shirt design, we're going to try and get it painted above our shop somewhere too.

We've also sorted out our bags, we're going to be using American style grocery bags (but smaller) as they are reuseable, made from recycled paper and totally cool! To save on costs we'll be using a wee rubber stamp that Rikki made instead of getting them printed.

Thursday, May 11, 2006

Are you watching us?

Well you will be when the shop opens! The webcams just arrived, and you'll be able to have a snout round the shop 24 hours a day 7 days a week ya nosey buggers! You can even move the cameras around while you are looking at them.

If ya fancy having a play around with one of these cameras I've set up a test one at my house -
http://82.31.69.88:50000/CgiStart?page=Single&Language=0
(you'll have to allow it to install a wee thingy)

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

our front!

I thought it was about time you saw what the shop looks like at the moment! I have no idea who that old lad is, I assume he will have moved on by the time we open the shop! There's not much to report with regards to the opening day, we're just buying the stuff we need to kit the shop out at the moment. Which means both my house and Rikki's houses look more like storerooms than anything else, mind you, Rikki's house has looked like that for years. Where as most people keep a few things under their bed, Rikki has so many records under his bed he had to put it on stilts! The result is a sort of punk rock bunk bed!

Friday, May 05, 2006

money money money

I've just written a sizeable cheque to the lawyers that look after the owner of the shop we want. I'm taking this as some sort of progress!

Other progress today includes the arrival of two cd flight cases, 1000 card cd wallets and a copy of 'Metal Hammer' (for research!)

I've just set Rikki up to use this blog so hopefully you'll be hearing from him too!

I've gotta dash now, i'm getting married in a couple of hours!

Thursday, May 04, 2006

Sticky fingers


wa-hoo! We've just ordered some kick ass skateboard stickers to promote the shop. It may not seem like much but it at least feels like we're moving foward. It's getting a bit frustrating waiting for the copy of the lease to come through, considering we're paying £300 towards the solicitors fees I was expecting them to move a bit faster! Mind you, that's probably pin money in their books!

We've also been chatting with some suppliers today and have had VERY enthusiastic responses from some labels that we like. They seemed just as excited as we are! One of the things we're thinking of stocking is ethical clothing, in the interests of market research I bought some NO SWEAT ethical trainers. They are totally great, and you even get a wee card with each pair telling you all the benifits the workers in India get as part of their job package!



Gotta go, my father in law has just walked in with two huge CD cases that he picked up for me and I'm itching to take a butchers!

Tuesday, May 02, 2006

Bin Dipping for Fun & Pleasure

We went and visited our accountant this morning and put things in motion to create our own limited company.

Later today we found out the local community radio station (ICR) was chucking out some stuff we might be able to use in the shop. So we hoped in my car and headed straight for their parking lot.

Rikki wasted no time in diving in;


We managed to get about five decent table tops and folding tables that we can use when we're out doing stalls at gigs or whatever.
Rikki wanted to make really sure we didn't miss anything;


Now that's active recycling!

Quick Catch Up

Well as I've only just started this blog I thought I'd better give you a quick catch up. Last Thursday me and Rikki went and looked at some premises for the shop. It used to be a bowls shop and is on a very busy road in Ipswich, it's right next to two sets of traffics lights (so people can sit at gawp at us when the lights are red). It's also on the main route thousands of college students take to and from college every day.
The shop has two parts, front and back. We'll probably put cds in the front and clothing in the back. Here's the view from the step that goes into the back part, looking towards the front of the shop. That's Rikki Flag on the floor trying to pull something.


And here's Rikki showing where the counter will go!


Now we're just waiting on the lease, we'll let ya know how it goes!

Hello!

Welcome to the Know Your Product blog.

Rikki Flag has been running Know Your Product as a distro for years and I (andrew culture) have wanted to start a record shop since I was old enough to gaze longingly at rows and rows of vinyl recortds.

The last local independant shop here in Ipswich shut down last year and after trawling the racks at HMV and Virgin records a couple of weeks ago I struggled to find anything more alternative than the Clash or (supposedly) Metalica. The day before I'd popped into All-Ages Records in London and fell in love with the place within seconds, not least because they bought some copies of Beat Motel off me!

The bug had bitten, I had to finally follow my boyhood dream and start my own record shop. I do owe a nod to my wife (Emma), for it was her that gave me the final kick up the arse I needed.

To cut a pretty long story kinda short I ended up joining forces with Rikki Flag. One week later we're waiting on a lease at the shop we've found, and this morning we took a trip to my accountant and put things in motion to set up Know Your Product as a limited company. We don't hang around ya know!

So add the RSS feed from this blog to your whatever thingy ma-bob and we'll let you know how the set up for the shop is going, and once the shop is open we'll do our best to keep you amused with the ups and downs of running a small punk/indie/ska/phychobilly/hardcore/metal/ska shop!