Cowbridge Nub News aims to support our community, promoting shops, businesses, charities, clubs and sports groups.

We will be profiling some of these businesses and organisations in a feature called 'Up Close in Cowbridge'.

Today, we speak with Sally Stephenson, owner of The Pencil Case to find out how she turned the national lockdown into a postive for her business.

Stepping through the door of The Pencil Case is a treat for the eyes.

There's rows of colouring books and pencils, balloons galore and a display of pumpkins complete with googly eyes.

Sally Stephenson set up The Pencil Case six years ago. Her plan was to bring a stationery store to Cowbridge, where children could get everything they needed for their school bag.

But as she viewed the unit at 50 Eastgate Street, which at the time was a sport shop, she was asked if she would like to sell school uniforms too.

"I said yes, because it reduced some of the risk of being a completely new retailer," said Sally.

"We started out selling uniforms for two primary schools when we opened, and then took on Cowbridge Comprehensive as well. Now we stock uniforms for 11 schools, which has all happened organically from parents coming in to ask us if we can provide for more schools. "

The shop has uniforms for all schools in the Cowbridge catchment area, and is expanding to include Ysgol Gymraeg Dewi Sant in Llantwit Major and will soon have uniform for Rhoose Primary school.

Sally continued: "We can kit you out for your whole school career. We've known some of our customers from day one, when we were fitting them for a nursery uniform, for primary school through to secondary.

"It's quite emotional to be a part of that journey. Our customers become our friends in that way." Shutting for 13 weeks during lockdown was a challenge for The Pencil Case.

"We could obviously see it was coming, so we spent the two weeks prior just entirely on updating the website and getting as many products on that as possible," said Sally.

"The website kept us ticking along, and we ran a click and collect service. I don't know what we would have done without that.

"We ended up doing a roaring trade in helium balloons, which was a complete surprise, but of course birthdays were still happening. It was really lovely to be a part of helping people celebrate birthdays and anniversaries, and bring smiles to a few people.

"We sold quite a bit of educational stuff as well to help with home schooling, but our sales still dropped around 70% during lockdown, which was really painful."

As soon as they were allowed, The Pencil Case reopened with a new layout to accommodate social distancing and safety measures in place.

Sally said everyone was supportive when they returned: "Lots of people are saying they want to support local businesses and support their local high street, which is lovely.

"We really pushed the message not to leave school uniform shopping until the end of August, because would couldn't accommodate a mad rush, but didn't want to lose the trade."

There were unexpected benefits for Sally and her team though.

"Covid gave us the kick to really sort out our website. We're about to relaunch it in the coming weeks," said Sally.

"It's fundamentally forced us to think about our business model now. We want to take advantage of the move online and reach out to a bigger audience outside of Cardiff and the Vale and go national. That'll mean focussing on the gift side of things.

"We now have the ambition to be a national brand, where if you're lucky enough to be in South Wales you can visit the shop.

"Of course, we're still in the shop and everyone can pop in for a chat and great customer service as well. But we would never have made these improvements without lockdown – it gave us the chance to get off the hamster wheel," she said.

The Pencil Case has six main categories of products: school uniform and stationery, a colouring range for all ages, the popular Top Model toy range, balloons and cards with eco-friendly packaging, including Welsh cards for every occasion, and finally gifts.

"Plus, the best customer service in the world!" Sally added.

"We joke, but that's what we're about. You can go online and buy anything, but what makes us different is that we provide first class customer service to everybody, they know us and we know them."

That service has paid off – within six months of opening in 2014, The Pencil Case won 'best new start-up of the year' at the South Wales Business Awards, and was a finalist in the Cardiff Life Awards.

Sally has also worked with other independent high-street retailers to support the town – in 2016 she petitioned against the Welsh Government's change to business rate calculations. "The new calculation meant my rates were due to go up by 400%, which would have properly put us out of business," said Sally.

"I got a few traders together, and we put together a massive campaign, hooked up with the Chamber of Trading in Monmouth and went to the Welsh Government to tell them they were about to put independent shops in serious danger.

"We launched a petition on their website, and had national news crews filming us in here. It ended with the Welsh Government putting in the High Street Relief scheme, which was a £10 million fund that started in April of 2017.

"We've kept the pressure on over the years, as it's due to renew next April as well," she said.

From pens and pencils to politics and petitions, it's been what Sally described as a six-year rollercoaster ride, but she's loved every minute of it. Find out more about The Pencil Case via their website , Facebook , or Twitter .