We are heading into the most important stretch of the year, and the business is moving in the right direction. The last 30 days are up about 15% on the month before, the last twelve months now stand at £347,616, and we are selling more of the shoes customers keep. June is always our quietest month, the calm before the summer, so the focus has turned fully to what comes next: the Summer Sale on 3 July, and making the most of it.
The focus this month is two things. First, keeping our advertising efficient and weighted toward what works for us, while giving our Meta adverts a refresh ahead of the sale. Second, and the bigger one, planning and preparing the Summer Sale, which opens on Friday 3 July. It is one of our two biggest selling events of the year, and the work for it is already well under way.
Where We Stand
Last Full Week
£3,961
Last 30 Days
£15,722
up 15%
Last 90 Days
£51,553
Last 12 Months
£347,616
Weekly sales over the last eight complete weeks.
Profit After Advertising
Sales taken (inc VAT)
£15,722
Less returns (to date)
-£690
Net sales (ex-VAT)
£12,527
Gross profit (71.5% margin)
£8,956
Less advertising
-£2,033
Profit after advertising
£6,923
Average order value was £121 across 130 orders. Revenue is up about 15% on the previous 30 days, and advertising came to about 23% of our gross profit.
The Work Behind the Numbers
It is worth setting out everything that sits behind these numbers, because a lot of it is hands on and never shows up on a sales chart. This is really two separate jobs: the marketing and growth side, and the day to day operations of the shop. Both currently run through one desk, week in, week out.
Marketing and growth
Writing and sending all the customer and retail sale emails to our subscribers
All social media, and creating the product photography
All paid advertising on Google and Meta: the adverts, the words, the strategy and the budgets
Writing all the blog and SEO articles that bring free traffic to the website
Website work behind the scenes for SEO and our Google rankings
Planning the creative and the campaigns for our sales
Operations and fulfilment
Taking all the incoming calls
Picking and packing every order
Taking the parcels to Royal Mail (we are part way through setting up a business collection account, so they will collect from us in future)
Handling all the refunds and returns as they come in
Answering all the emails, customer questions and complaints
A few numbers from the marketing side recently:
Customer Emails Sent
59
Social Posts Created
13
Customer Groups
11
Email is not one message sent to everyone. Our customers are split into 11 groups based on what they have bought and how they shop, so each one gets the right message rather than a single blanket send.
Looking ahead, my time is best spent on the work that grows revenue and profit: the sales, the campaigns, the adverts, the planning and the strategy. A good share of the day to day above, the picking and packing, the calls, the parcels to Royal Mail, is hands-on work that pulls me away from that. With the foundations we now have in place, the biggest gain from here would be handing the day to day operations to someone else, so my full focus can go on driving sales and building the brand. That is where the real value is, and where I am keen to push next.
A single sale like the one coming in July pulls all of these threads together at once: pricing, stock, new product pages, photography, emails, adverts, social and the website, all planned and timed so they land on the same day.
The Summer Sale, and the Plan For It
Counting down to launch
11 days
The Summer Sale opens on Friday 3 July 2026, one of our two biggest selling events of the year.
The Summer Sale is the main job for June, and there is a lot that has to come together for it to go well. The order matters: the sale prices and stock come first, then the new product descriptions, and only then can the pages be built, the emails written, the adverts created and the website set to switch over on the day. It is all laid out below so nothing gets left to the last minute. The one thing everything else waits on is the sale pricing and stock levels, so that is where we start.
Who
What needs doing
By when
Craig
Sale prices and stock. Confirm which lines go in the sale, the price for each one, and how many we have in each size. Everything for the sale waits on this, so it needs to come first.
Wed 25 Jun
Stuart
New product descriptions. Write the descriptions for all the new lines coming in, so their pages can be built and ready before launch.
Fri 27 Jun
Stuart
Boxes and supplies. Check we have enough shoe boxes, tissue, mailers and packing supplies to cover the busier July, and reorder now if we are short.
Wed 25 Jun
Me
All the marketing. The customer and trade emails, social posts, adverts, new product pages, photography brief, and setting the website up for the sale. Listed in full below.
ready for 3 Jul
The marketing side, once the prices are in:
Emails. The full run of customer emails (a teaser, the launch, a mid sale reminder and a last chance), plus the trade email for our retailers, with the pictures, words and timing all set.
New product pages. Built for all the new lines coming in, using Stuart's descriptions, ready to go live.
Prices and website. Every sale line set to its new price, and the site updated to show the sale, with the banner, homepage and collection ready to switch on the day.
Photography. The photographer briefed and booked for fresh pictures of the new lines and the key sale shoes.
Adverts. Google and Meta run through the sale, with new sale adverts created for both and the sale prices fed through correctly.
Social. New posts and pictures for the sale across the schedule, with a build up first and a push on launch day.
Content. The supporting pieces that carry the sale message, from the landing page to styling ideas.
Ready and checked. All of it built, checked and lined up, ready for the third of July.
The build waits on Craig's prices and Stuart's descriptions coming in first, so the sooner those land, the more time there is to make the sale land well. From there I manage the whole thing through to launch.
Our Advertising
Our advertising runs at around £68 a day across both channels, which is roughly 13 pence in every £1 of sales. That is a controlled, efficient level for a normal month. The two channels do different jobs, and they are best read together rather than judged side by side.
Channel
Spend a day
Google
£31
Meta
£37
Exact returns are hard to pin to the penny, because most customers see us in more than one place before they buy, often on Meta first and then through Google.
Google captures the demand. Google is where most of our paid sales land, because it catches people at the moment they search for us, ready to buy. The plan is to keep it as the lead channel, hold the spend efficient, and make sure our sale prices feed straight into it the moment the Summer Sale starts. Google will carry the sale on the paid side.
Meta builds the brand. Meta sits at the top of the funnel. It puts the brand and the shoes in front of people who are not searching yet, and many of them come back later and buy through Google. So Meta's own figure looks smaller, but it is a big part of why Google does so well. We are testing fresh creative and new angles on Meta to make that work harder, and building the sale set now.
How the two channels work together
Top of the funnel · Meta
Builds the brand and puts our shoes in front of people who are not searching yet
▼
They remember us, then come back and search
▼
Bottom of the funnel · Google
Captures them at the moment they are ready to buy
This is why Meta's own figure looks small but still matters: it feeds the demand that Google then converts into sales.
Spending plan for the Summer Sale. The Summer Sale is one of our two biggest moments of the year, on a par with Christmas, so this is the time to invest properly behind it and push harder than we ever have. A normal month runs at around £68 a day, a combined Google and Meta figure. Our biggest push to date was January, when we spent about £9,300 across the month, close to £300 a day, and the month brought in over £60,000. Our April sale, by contrast, did £22,851 on far less. For the Summer Sale I would go beyond our January level: lifting the combined spend to around £350 to £400 a day across the sale weeks, roughly £10,000 to £12,000 over the period, weighted to Google to capture the extra demand and a strong Meta push in the run up to build awareness. That is more than we have ever put behind a sale, and based on how our sales have performed it points to a record summer, well past the £22,851 of April and toward our January peak, with the ad spend a small fraction of the return.
In short: hold the efficient run rate now, then invest behind the sale, with Google capturing the demand and Meta building awareness, ready for 3 July.
Our Shoes
We have 24 shoes on sale at the moment. Here are the five earning us the most over the last 90 days, and they are also among the ones customers are happiest to keep.
The styles that come back too often, mostly down to a narrow fit
Best selling shoes (after returns)
Sales
Returns
Guildhall Capped Oxfords (Imperfect)
£6,936
12%
Hill Chelsea Suede Boot
£3,367
4%
Monkton Double Monk Shoes
£3,078
8%
Lucan Semi-Brogues
£2,947
15%
Stokes Brogue Derby Shoes
£2,480
18%
Running low on stock:
Downey Penny Loafer, 1 week left
Hill Chelsea Boot, under 4 weeks
Rudd Derby Shoes, under 5 weeks
Jermyn Derby Shoes, 5 weeks
Stokes Brogue Derby Shoes, 8 weeks
Tanner Derby Shoes, 8 weeks
Coming back most often:
Rudd Derby Shoes, 48%
Guildhall Capped Oxfords, 33%
Broad Derby Shoes, 29%
Ethan Plain Calf Suede Loafer, 25%
Hill Chelsea Boot, 24%
This feeds straight into the sale. I will check the stock above with Craig before we set anything live, so we do not put a shoe in the sale that is about to sell out.
Our Customers
Over the last 30 days, the average order was £121, and about 11% of orders came from returning customers, people who have bought from us before.
We watch returns closely at the style level, where the numbers are settled and clear. A few narrow-fit styles come back often, the Rudd Derby at 48% and the Guildhall at 33%, while our best sellers are among the lowest, with the Hill Chelsea Suede Boot under 4% and the Monkton Double Monk at 8%. The work has been to put our marketing behind the styles people keep and away from the few that get sent back, and we will lead the sale the same way, with the shoes customers are happy with out in front.
Our customers are also split into groups so each one can be spoken to properly. The group we have not heard from in a while is a real opportunity in the sale, and they will get their own early look and last chance message to bring them back.
Where Our Sales Come From
The website had 13,622 visits over the last 30 days, converting to orders at about 1.0%. For a considered, premium purchase that is a healthy rate.
Beyond the paid adverts above, the wider picture is healthy and well spread, with sales coming through direct visits, search, email and our paid channels, rather than leaning on any single source.
Email. Several campaigns went out to our customer groups this week, reaching over 24,000 inboxes, and the focus now turns to building the full run of Summer Sale emails for both customers and our retailers.
Blog and search. The blog publishes regularly and brings in steady free traffic from Google at no media cost. There is a good opportunity to build on this: pulling our dress-shoe articles together under one main guide page would strengthen how we rank for dress shoes and give us a piece of the site we have never had. It is low cost and a strong addition to make before the autumn.
Stock and Cash
Pairs in Stock
3,500
Styles Not Selling
2
About to Sell Out
6
Two styles are not selling at all, the Castle Chukka Boot and the Wessex Chukka Suede Boot, with 233 pairs tied up between them. The Summer Sale is the natural moment to clear these rather than carry them into autumn. A handful of other styles are running low, so I will check those against the sale list, to be sure we never promote a shoe that is about to sell out.
The Competition
Herring is still clearing out Barker stock cheaply, with the Barker Winsford Oxford down to £135 from £310. That is a clear out, not a sign of where prices are heading. Barker's new range starts at £195 to £299, close to ours. Loake has launched a members' club, worth keeping an eye on if it brings member only prices. The one to watch most is Cheaney, who keep appearing in the style magazines and sit a step above us.
The good news for the sale is that our main shoes at £120 to £140 already sit well below Loake's starting price, so we look like real value without having to cut deep. I want to run the Summer Sale as a proper seasonal event on chosen lines, not a race to the bottom.
What I Recommend
#
Recommendation
1
Get me the sale prices and stock from Craig by Wednesday 25 JuneThis is the one thing the whole sale waits on. The product pages, the price changes, the adverts and every email all need it. We are 11 days from launch, so I need this first.
2
Stuart to write the new descriptions and check our July suppliesThe new product pages need the descriptions, and a busy sale will eat through our boxes and packing fast. Descriptions by 27 June, and the supplies checked by Wednesday 25 June with a reorder if we are short.
3
Invest behind the advertising, more than we ever haveA normal month runs at around £68 a day across both channels. The Summer Sale is one of our two biggest moments of the year, so I want to push past our previous biggest spend and lift it to around £350 to £400 a day across the sale weeks, roughly £10,000 to £12,000, weighted to Google with a strong Meta push in the run up. The extra spend is a small fraction of what a record sale month returns.
4
Let me build the full Summer Sale campaign nowThe customer and trade emails, new product pages, social and advert designs, photography and the website setup, all built and lined up ready for 3 July. I start the moment Craig's prices land.
5
Clear our two slow styles through the saleThe Castle and Wessex Chukka boots, 233 pairs, have not sold in 90 days. The Summer Sale is the right moment to move them and free up the space rather than carry them into autumn.
Decisions I Need From You
Get the sale prices and stock from Craig by Wednesday 25 June. This is what the whole sale build waits on.
Confirm our July boxes and supplies with Stuart. Enough boxes, tissue and mailers for a busy sale, reordered now if short.
Back the advertising for the sale, beyond our previous biggest push. Lift the combined daily spend to around £350 to £400 across the sale weeks, about £10,000 to £12,000, weighted to Google with a stronger Meta push in the run up.
Agree the shape of the Summer Sale. Which shoes go in and how much off.
What Happens Next
The next two weeks are all about getting the Summer Sale right. The order is simple. Craig gets the prices and stock over by Wednesday 25 June, Stuart gets the new descriptions over by 27 June, then the pages get built, the emails written, the adverts made and the website set to switch over, all lined up ready for Friday 3 July. Stuart checks our supplies in parallel so we can keep up with the orders.
Alongside the sale, the advertising steps up for the event, backing Google to capture the demand and refreshing Meta to build awareness, so both go into the sale in the best shape.
After July, the two things worth a little time are the main guide page for our search visibility and getting us featured in the men's style press, both low cost and worth doing before the autumn. For now, the Summer Sale has the full focus.
Your Thoughts
Any thoughts or feedback?
JOHN WHITE SHOES · EST. 1919 · PRIVATE & CONFIDENTIAL · PREPARED BY ARKISH PATEL · JUNE 2026
