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Without intending to sound too downbeat, it’s fair to say that 2011 is shaping up to be a tough year. And not just in terms of the miserable summer weather; it seems that the continuing global economic problems are now affecting UK households more acutely than before. All of us at Polished Bliss have certainly felt our own purse strings stretched in recent months, and cost cutting has been the order of the day. From a business perspective, we’re certainly very aware of the need to focus on value for money in these testing times, and as a result we’ve been looking at new product lines that offer exactly that. And there is none more relevant than the brand new line up from Auto Finesse…

On Sunday 8th May we hosted a charity car care demonstration event for the Porsche Club of Great Britain. In keeping with similar events we’ve hosted in the past, we offered the club a free correction detail in return for them raising money for a local charity of our choice. Russell Gould very kindly organised a raffle, which was drawn at a club meet on a beautiful spring day in Strathdon. In the process, the Region 2 (North of Scotland) members of the club managed to raise over £1000, for which we are very grateful.

Last weekend, on a rather grey spring day, we hosted our first open day of 2011 at our premises in Kintore. The turn out was excellent given the dull weather, so our thanks go out to everyone who came along and made it such an enjoyable day. The formal demonstrations covered wet engine bay detailing, safe wash methods and exterior decontamination; all of the products used are linked below. Despite it being busy throughout the day, we did manage to capture a set of images showing what went on; hopefully these will encourage interest in our next open day, which will be held in September (with a winter prep theme).

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We don’t usually pay much attention to the anniversary of the date we first started trading (9th January 2006), but this year it feels like more of a milestone worth celebrating. Although estimates vary, evidence suggests that less than half of new businesses survive for five years or more. Given that half a decade after our launch we are still growing strongly and weathering the wider economic woes reasonably well, we feel very proud of Polished Bliss in terms of the brand we have established, the team we have put together and what we have achieved to date.

When we first launched Polished Bliss, interest in the concept of detailing was gaining substantial momentum. Sure, the concept of high quality car care wasn’t exactly new and there were already numerous established traders in the marketplace, but nobody had thought to combine the sale of products with the provision of services… or to focus on offering free expert advice too. This was a brand new business model for car care in the UK, and to this day still underpins what the Polished Bliss brand stands for in the marketplace.

As we predicted last November, our relationship with professional photographer Tim Wallace has evolved significantly over the last twelve months, from a simple licensing arrangement to eventually having Tim visit us in person and shoot for us in our own detailing studio. Tim’s work is often described as dramatic and conceptual, and is highly regarded within both the commercial photography and advertising industries. Indeed, Tim’s unique style and ability to precisely capture the essence of his subjects has recently resulted in him being named as one of ten most influential photographers in the world today. Accordingly, we are absolutely delighted to be continuing to work with him on an ongoing project to capture the essence of detailing and showcase the work that we do.

The last eight weeks have been an exceptionally busy time at Polished Bliss, reflecting our best ever October sales (it’s great to see so many people finally taking winter preparation so seriously!) and a number of exciting additions to our store, the most surprising of which is the full range of Swissvax car care products. We say surprising, simply because the invite we received from Swissvax UK to stock the line came completely out of the blue; no doubt like everyone else, we had always assumed that Swissvax products would only be sold by Swissvax and nobody else. To say we are very happy with this change in direction by Swissvax UK is an understatement; we have long felt that our store should carry a well established, world renowned, flagship brand and Swissvax now fulfils these criteria perfectly. Furthermore, it has also been an absolute joy learning to use the full range of products in our detailing studio; the old adage ‘you get what you pay for’ has never been so true, as all of the products in the range are very easy to use and deliver exceptional results, reflecting the quality and rich know how that has been developed and acquired by Swissvax over the last eighty years.

Last weekend, on a rather grey and wet Saturday, we hosted an open day at our premises in Kintore for the first time in nearly eighteen months. The turn out was far better than expected given the weather, so our thanks go out to everyone who came along and made it such an enjoyable day. In the past, a laid back approach was often taken when organising such events, but this time round we followed a structured timetable of demonstrations and activities, and we feel the day was much more successful as a result. So much so in fact that we are now already planning a similar event for spring next year! Despite all six of us being constantly busy throughout the day, our new detailer Alan did manage to capture a nice selection of images showing what went on – hopefully these will whet some appetites for future events!

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As part of our plans for expansion in 2010, many changes have been made to both our existing unit and the two additional industrial units we have also taken on. Whilst we are not quite ready for a proper show and tell yet, we thought it might be nice to show you the changes that have recently been made to our existing unit. Many of you will have been familiar with the old layout of a single well equipped detailing bay and a small partitioned off stockroom, and this format certainly served its purpose well for the last three years. However, in order to double our stockholding and make room for another detailing bay and more overnight storage, we recently moved the stockroom into one of the new units and then set about taking down the partition to make the detailing space fully open plan again. We didn’t record the demolition process as it was very dusty and thus not camera friendly, so this post picks up afterwards and shows how we have transformed the feel of the new open plan space by fitting an ecotile floor.