Jill Campion Handmade Tile Limited

Business name
Jill Campion Handmade Tile Limited

Where are you based?
St Albans, Hertfordshire

What is your name?
Jill Campion

What does your business do?
We make handmade English ceramic tile and decorate them using either standard or one off designs, based on art work from the archives of The British Library and The Royal Horticultural Society. Clients also come to us with their own art work which we adapt, working with them, and create their own tile panel. We have worked from paintings, photographs – even made our own drawings for clients. The whole idea came from the fact that I was frustrated by the very limited choice of classic designs available on a good quality handmade tile – and in my house I wanted to have something unique on my kitchen wall, which I had chosen. I realised that if I wanted this then it might be something that other people were interested in – and they were! People love the chance to make their kitchen or bathroom their very own.

In terms of tableware, we are about to launch “Limited Editions” – a range of table ware for The British Library. This will start with a new bone china mug, modelled and made for us in Stoke on Trent, to be decorated with a piece of 500 year old art work celebrating the birth of Henry VIII – in preparation for the major exhibition by The British Library about Henry VIII in April.

The great thing is that because all of our tiles are made to order and decorated in the same place in Stoke on Trent, and then shipped direct to the client, it is a very environmentally friendly choice to buy from us. The tiles are not coming in from overseas or being shipped to warehouses and then on to showrooms and then onto clients. Of course the client benefits from these lower costs as well. In addition every sale using art work from the British Library or The Royal Horticultural Society earns a royalty which goes back to support the extrardinary work that they do.

The other thing that I also feel is very important is that every sale helps to keep skilled craftsmen and women busy in Stoke. They have such a passion for the tile making process, they really love our designs and tiles and take a real pride in it. When I met them I asked them if they could do a better glaze – I wanted an even better finish so we could righlty say we had the best ! Instead of telling me to take a walk – some of them have been in tile making for over twenty years - they set off to find an even better glaze – and did. If we have to work over the weekend , then that happens – we all want the clients to be delighted. There is a real pride in the final product that you don’t hear much about these days – but to us it is the most important thing. That is why most of our customers reorder from us or tell their friends – who then order.

Who owns the business?
I own it with my husband who has a full time job with a well known IT company. He has an incredibly demanding job, works very long hours but when he is around he is always very encouraging even though he works with sales in the billions.

When did you start it?
I started working on the idea in 2004. I was working free lance with another tile company at that stage in New York and tried really hard to interest them in doing it. They had a huge turnover with one major client in theUK and they decided that responding quickly to the needs of lots of individual customers with new panels was not right for them.

What was the turnover last year?
£15,000 – which is an awful lot of tiles. I feel this was a good total as I changed our subcontractor in April . My original supplier was struggling to meet the ever increasing demand, and by were approached by a company who were very passionate about handmade tile but they could not achieve the sales. We did some trials together and saw the quality was fantastic and reliable, and then really went for sales. In fact our tiles have improved enormously as a result of the change so things worked out very well. We have already got orders and sales on our books of nearly £10,000 for the first two monthsof this year so we are predicting £60,000 turnover this year. We are about to see our Spring advertising come onto the newstands and this always gives us a boost.

Have you seen sales increase or decrease since Oct 2008?
Increase – January and February 2009 have been our best months since we started in business. We have also been greatly helped by setting up at a time when people look more and more to the internet for their supplier sources.

We have the odd client whose project has gone on hold whilst they find another job, but our clients tend to come to us at the end of their project. They are typically not trying to maximise the resale value of thir house – they just want to buy beautiful tiles which they can enjoy for the next twenty years.

How many staff do you have?
Paid or unpaid?! Lots of family members help out who don’t get paid here. In Stoke our main subcontractor has five employees.

www.jillcampion.com