A look back at 2024

In my annual look back at the year just gone, I want to start this year with what makes me most proud...

As part of our Costumes Source Dance Community Grant, we've awarded over £6,000 in grants this year. These aren’t discounts, schemes, or memberships — this is real funding directly supporting dance schools across the UK.

So far, our grants have positively impacted over 1,200 people, creating meaningful, lasting change. Many grants will continue to benefit new dancers for years to come, amplifying their impact even further.

Every time you hire from Costume Source, a portion of your hire contributes to these grants. The more you hire, the more we can give back to the dance community.

This year we also launched an initiative to support and invest in entrepreneurs in the dance and performing arts sectors.

So what about everything else?

Everything has grown — again!

We now own more costumes than ever before, ship more bookings than ever, and each booking includes more costumes than ever. Our website handles more visitors than ever, and our support team manages more customer communications than ever.

Behind the scenes, this growth has meant adding more staff, improving more procedures, adding more technology, and – with the addition of so many new costumes – adding more space too!

When I started Costume Source in 2017, I could never have imagined such rapid and remarkable growth. The business today is almost unrecognisable from those early days, yet our core values remain unchanged: high-quality costumes at affordable prices, a simple and seamless hire process, excellent communication, and a commitment to doing business without compromising people or the planet.

Goodbye Returns Queue

As part of this continued expansion, this has been our first full year running our state-of-the-art laundry facility and enhanced return processes — and wow, did we notice the difference this summer!

Up until September 2023, we had a returns queue. All bookings returning from hire would sit in this queue until Team In could process them. By July 2023, it felt like the queue would never end! Each day as the lorry reversed up to the doors, full of even more boxes, the team faced it with a mix of determination and dread. Despite working round the clock, including weekends, hires were returning faster than we could process them.

Fast forward to July 2024: even though we were busier than ever, there was no returns queue. Not only that, but an incredible 73% of costumes were processed and back on the rail the same day they were returned — all without compromising on quality. Team In was far less stressed and even had more time to enjoy their lunch breaks in the sun.

However, timely returns remain critical to our operation. Late returns create a ripple effect that ultimately impacts other dancers waiting for their costumes.

Hello Reputation Score

This year, we’ve implemented stronger measures to address late returns and poor behaviour. We’ve tightened our procedures, introduced faster action against problem customers, and started showing customers their Reputation Score.

The Reputation Score ranges from 1 to 100 and starts at 50 for all customers. With every hire, your score gradually increases, but it drops quickly if issues like late returns occur. While we’ve used this scoring internally for some time, we’re now sharing it with customers to promote transparency and encourage improvement before any actions, like account blocks, are taken.

New features to help our customers

This year, we’ve introduced a bunch of exciting new features:

• Ideas: An easy way to store, categorise, and share costume ideas effortlessly.

• Open Banking Payments: Balance payments are now easier than ever — no need for card details, simply approve the payment via your bank’s app.

• School Insights Tool: See how your school ranks both regionally and nationally, supported by data from our brand-new data warehouse.

Speaking of data, our data warehouse is a game-changer. We’re now tracking millions of metrics each month, ensuring we remain data-driven and customer-focused.

It’s incredible to think that only two years ago, we were still navigating the post-lockdown world. Now, that feels like a distant memory as we continue to grow, invest, and improve our services every year.

Thank you for being part of this with us

We continue to look to the future and all that it brings and we’re committed to making Costume Source better for you, year after year.

We've already got lots in store for 2025...

All that leaves is for me to wish you a very happy, peaceful and safe Christmas and we’ll see you in the new year.

Aleksis Gailans

Founder, Costume Source