It is with a tinge of sadness that we have to announce that today, November 30th 2012, was the last trading day of Thain Leisure Ltd. We are hanging up our leashes, packing up our board bags and shutting up shop after 4 years selling surfing and SUP equipment.
We have learned so much during that time and met some great people along the way. Thank you so much to everybody that believed in us and everybody that purchased something from us. It was a privilege to serve you and we hope that our products and our service not only met but exceeded your expectations.
We are proud to say that we never had a single bad debt, everybody paid up pretty much on-time, our couriers delivered everything that we sent out, never losing a single item and despite one or two small quality issues in the early days, we managed to sort everything out and always put things right for our customers – no questions asked!
As a small business start-up back in 2008, we knew it wasn’t going to be easy – we were entering a market we didn’t really know, with a brand of surf gear that was basically unknown in the UK, we had never run our own business before and we were just about to experience the worst banking crisis in our lifetime, with the consequential impact of recession and now austerity! During the past four years we have had ZERO help from the government, we have financed everything ourselves without any loan from the bank and managed to pay all our suppliers and our bills on time (or even early in some cases), at the end owing not a single penny to anyone but ourselves.
We have worked long into the night packing orders, sending out invoices and doing all the administration for the business. We have driven almost the entire coastline of England and Wales, and have probably visited almost every surf, SUP and watersports shop in the country, many more than once! There have been highs (getting our very first trade order from Surf, Surf, Surf and our first order from our website) and lows (waiting more than 6 months for the first container of stock to arrive from China) but despite everything we have kept smiling and tried to remain positive throughout.
Upon leaving this business we can look back and feel pretty good about what we have achieved. We haven’t become millionaires, but we haven’t starved to death either. We haven’t built a global empire, but we haven’t ripped anyone off or fallen out with anyone. We have introduced three brands to the UK and hope that we leave each brand with a better reputation, recognition and brand perception than when we started. All in all, we did OK and now we move on to new and exciting challenges and opportunities.
Once more we’d like wish everyone with whom we have had dealings this past four year our sincerest thanks and as surfers say…Mahalo!!
Chris & Kerry
Thain Leisure Ltd









