Dog beds at Crufts

Fantastic show again this year!! Tuffies has had a stand at Crufts for the last nine years and each year our brand of dog beds gets stronger and stronger. We have NEVER been a company that pushes sales as we have simply made a fantastic product year in and year out, which has become synonymous with quality and now everyone knows where to get the best: at Tuffies. It is in fact hilarious that we constantly find that a previous customer is on the stand with a friend telling the friend all the glorious points about Tuffies. It is literally a case of “You HAVE to come to the Tuffies stand as I am so pleased with my Tuffie bed”. Often, when new customers are on the stand asking questions, a repeat customer buds in and takes over the conversation praising the product. Well, we certainly feel we are doing something right.

What did come as a bit of a surprise to us was the popularity of the nests. We normally only take enough to show plus a handful to sell, while our flat beds are all the rave. Of course in terms of dog beds we have the absolute perfect combination in the flat, waterproof Tuffie  with the Luxury Fleece cover to go with it. What could be simpler and more hygienic than hosing down a flat dog pbed while the cover is in the washing machine? The covers come out like new after washing and everything is nice and fresh after very little effort. So they are super popular, but we simply see that our customers find that their dogs are SOOO pleased to cuddle into a nest that they HAVE to have one.

We launched the “Uber-nest” as we call it here, officially it’s the Giant Nest. It was a fantastic talking point although its enormous weight and size means that only few dog owners need it or want it. We did sell quite a few, but they were all to be delivered later. Nobody wants to carry an 18Kg dog bed on the bus from NEC to the car park and across the car park.

In our brand new brochure we also feature a product that is not quite here yet: the Tuffie Plastic bed liner. We used to make these, but it ended up being very expensive as the pattern ate up a lot of fabric, which was just wasted. The previous way of making these was also pretty awkward and we ended up with a lot of finished liners with faults in them. The new liner is much better as it’s made from the Luxury Fleece and simplified in certain parts, which creates less waste and quicker production time. All in all, we are very optimistic about our new type of dog beds as many people surely own an ugly, uncomfortable plastic bed, which will be totally transformed by putting a liner into it. We are extremely upbeat about this product.

On Sunday we packed up the remains of the stock and set off homebound. A lovely show, but as a trade stand holder we don’t really see any of the Crufts show at all. I heard who the winner was on the radio on Monday…..