darikwaI started asa merchandiser.
Twenty years in retail: operations, finance and merchandising, for retailers large and small. Still my day job, alongside Darikwa.
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I started as a merchandiser.
I started as a merchandiser, not a technologist. Dreams, then Tesco, then Wyevale Garden Centres. Twenty years later I still run retail operations, finance and merchandising day to day. I kept finding that the tool I needed did not exist, so I taught myself to build it. AI tooling now writes most of the code. I decide what gets built, I review it, and every report is reconciled to the accounts and the stock file before it goes live.
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Darikwa, and Retail Loom.
Darikwa is where I do the same reporting and planning work for other product businesses, in the evenings, a few at a time. Retail Loom is the generalised, sellable version of that system — merchandise planning, inventory management and bill of materials, built for retailers to run their own day-to-day trading and stock decisions. Both sit under Elizabeth Gracie Ltd, the company I own and run.
retailloom.app ↗Darikwa is my father's name, and my own middle name.
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A few details, for the record.
- Based
- United Kingdom
- Languages
- English · Shona · Spanish
- Studying
- BSc Data Science (OU)
- Trading as
- Elizabeth Gracie Ltd
- Educated
- LCF · Westminster · LSE · Columbia
- Point of contact
- Just me
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Free tools and paid templates.
Free calculators and interactive retail workbooks, built from the same twenty years in retail. Use them as they are, or start with the Reporting Review.
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A business problem thatneeds someone who's done it?
One conversation is usually enough to know whether I can help.
Get in touch