Introduction
If you’ve visited Joshua Lloyd in the past, you’ll have noticed a big difference to the website and most likely thinking… where have all the products gone!? In this short blog, I personally address the pretty big changes that have happened at Joshua Lloyd recently, and why everything looks… well, different. – Joshua Lloyd Griffin (Founder & Managing Director of Joshua Lloyd)
TL’DR: Joshua Lloyd is no longer an e-commerce brand and will no longer sell Pride merchandise and gender neutral clothing. Recently acquired by Pride.Deals, the brand is now focused on creating an inclusive LGBTQ+ Pride magazine to welcome the latest news, guides, product reviews, and entertainment.
Brand history
Joshua Lloyd started out in 2019 to redefine shopping for the LGBTQ+ community by offering inclusive gender neutral clothing and Pride merchandise. Over the following years the brand continued to grow and soon became a safe space, community hub, leading Pride identity shop, and the first place to find out the latest news, catch up on awareness days, and read through LGBTQ+ entertainment.
As the brand grew, so did the products and services available. From a small bedroom in my parents house, soon became a much larger operation shipping out thousands of orders each month with over 5,000 Pride products in stock. We attended Pride events when lockdowns eased and got to catch up with our customers for the first time face to face and began hiring a small team to piece together the most inclusive brand possible.
Achievements
The brand was recognised and awarded on numerous occasions, including the Great British Entrepreneur Awards, North West LGBTQ+ Business Awards, and the StartUp global series, with the brand also noted as Europe’s number 1 LGBTQ+ identity Pride shop in 2022. Our products were shipped to customers throughout the world, and even ended up on UK television shows including The Only Way Is Essex (TOWIE), shared throughout local newspapers, and across the web. Everything was going in the right direction, but there were greater challenges to be met…
Challenges faced
Ever since launch, slap bang in the face of the Coronavirus pandemic, the Joshua Lloyd brand has much like you had to navigate its way through countless economic and global pressures. The constant issues in todays current climate made it very difficult to keep up with global enterprises, especially when already battling the rise in price on materials, shipping, energy bills… the list goes on.
Over the past year, it became even more difficult to keep the brand you know and love in the position in needs to be. With a year of countless of overtime, pricing battles with distributors, suppliers, and competitors and complete burnout of all involved, it came to making a decision on the future of Joshua Lloyd.
Future of the brand
Discussions of selling the brand to competitors, distributors, and suppliers began during 2023, however, many find themselves in similar situations not thanks to some of the most challenging years we’ve found ourselves living through recently, which didn’t make this an option as selling for the sake of it would let down the entire community the brand has built.
It was eventually decided to redefine the services you know and love at Joshua Lloyd to ensure we continue offering the best news, guidance, product reviews, and entertainment that many of you return for on a regular basis… alongside the products (sorry).
Joshua Lloyd is now part of Pride.Deals which is also behind numerous other LGBTQ+ Pride brands you may already know and love. The same team who have brought you everything Joshua Lloyd has offered over the years are in the same position to continue providing inclusive and entertaining content, however, we are no longer pursuing as an e-commerce store, and for this reason we will not be stocking any products moving forward.
Thank you!
We know that this news may be upsetting for some of our community and customers, especially those who have shopped with us from the early beginnings, trust me when I say that this is upsetting on all sided. However, there are many ways in which the brand can grow forwards to continue offering services to the LGBTQ+ community which is everything Joshua Lloyd set out to do in the first place.
I truly hope that you stick around with us, we’ve put a lot of work in to keep the website alive and really want to focus on maintaining the inclusive and safe space environment created. So if you’re new to Joshua Lloyd, or a returning customer that thought they landed on the wrong website, thank you for staying.
Together we can help
I’d love it if you could let us know if there is anything you feel we’re missing from the website. Although Joshua Lloyd has been completely redesigned, it’s been pieced together to build a fresh restart to create an inclusive hub with everything the LGBTQ+ may need. There’s still a lot of new updates in the pipeline, so be sure to subscribe to our newsletter for the latest updates!
I’d also like to ask you that you continue to support local businesses wherever possible. I’ve spoken with many business owners since the big decisions of Joshua Lloyd got underway and you’ll be surprised how many are struggling, even the ones that look much bigger on the outside. It’s a truly difficult time for the majority of people in the UK right now, in fact it expands quite globally, but if we all do our part to support one another, we can hopefully create much better environment for us all to live within.
Thanks again for reading this far, I look forward to speaking with you all in the near future.
Kindest regards,
Joshua