About Us

The Bead Shop is a family run business, which was first established in 1993 with a store in Manchester Corn Exchange. Although we can’t convey the atmosphere of our stores online, we hope you find the site as fun and enticing as shopping in person, because we pride ourselves on our unique and stylish beads from all around the world. As bead lovers, we are always finding amazing new products and adding them to our website so the contents of our Aladdin’s cave just keeps growing and growing!

We encourage you to visit us in person for the full Bead Shop experience, we feel our shop is fabulous because we have put a lot of our time and energy into making it as enjoyable for our customers, so that they love it as much as we do.

While your at the shop and you need to find something or if you are unsure about anything, our knowledgeable and friendly staff will be happy to answer any questions and help you create your own beaded jewellery

Harvey

The Bead Shop is the brainchild of Harvey Kersh and his late wife Fay. Having began his career as a successful hairdresser, owning several hair salons within the North West. In need of a new challenge Harvey and Fay developed a design and export company. They began designing and manufacturing luxury gift products, selling their designs to large deportment store and boutiques. The business was a huge success. The business took Harvey and Fay all over the world and won many businness awards even meeting the Queen. 

In 1990 Fay was diagnosed with cancer and the pressures of running a large business became too much. The couple needed another challenge; something fun and creative but closer to home. Wracking their heads for ideas, Fay woke up one morning and told the family she had been dreaming about beads. It was from this dream that The Bead Shop was born.

As Fay’s health deteriorated their children began helping out with the business. Fay passed away in 1995. With a small business to run and four children to look after, Harvey’s son Matthew joined The Bead Shop full time. 16 years on and with a successful Manchester Shop and Website, Harvey has semi-retired allowing his children Emily, Matthew, Oliver and Josh to take full control of the shop.

Emily

Emily’s full time involvement with The Bead Shop began in 2000, when her love of beads enticed her back into the family business. Previous to this Emily was living in Ibiza creating and selling her own jewellery and designing clothes for her own fashion label.

Emily is now responsible for the company marketing, creating projects in numerous bead and craft magazines. She designs jewellery making kits for The Bead Shop website and runs various beading classes throughout the month. A self confessed lover of all things sparkly, her favorite products are Swarovski Crystals and Pearls.

Matthew

Matthew has been involved in the business since its inception in 1993. He has worked in all areas of the business, working part time as a sales assistant during his college years and then moving on to more serious management roles over the last ten years.

A self confessed computer geek and in need of a new challenge, Matthew began researching the possibility of selling beads on line. Set up an office space in his dad’s garage he started slowly, employing friends to help him pack the few orders they received each week. As his knowledge and confidence grew the potential was endless. 5 years on, the website is a business in its own right, employing 10 staff from a Victorian warehouse in Ardwick.

Oliver

After spending some years running his own Vintage clothing shop in Leeds, Oliver joined The Bead Shop with a vision of transforming the shop from a beads and accessories store, to a more serious bead supplier. Oliver has been deeply involved in the development of our Afflecks Shop in Manchester City Centre. Now Oliver has set up a new craft website called Love Craft, carrying an amazing range of craft materials and accessories to help to you be as creative as possible.

Josh

Since leaving University in 2008, Joshua has changed his role from general helper to that of looking after publicity, design and graphics. Joshua is responsible for the overall look of The Bead Shop website, including product photographs, promotional material and advertisements. Joshua is currently developing The Bead Shop blog and always working to further develop the website as a whole.

eanwhile, Harvey is taking things a little easier, restoring vintage furniture and painting. He still enjoys offering both his creative advice and business acumen to the staff and his children, all of whom are totally committed to helping you develop your skills and ideas as a jewellery maker.

The Bead Shop is very much a family affair. We hope our passion, love and enthusiasm extends to every single customer. That's why Feedback is important to us. So we would love to hear your comments about the site, the shops and our services in general. Drop us an e-mail if there’s anything you’d like to know, or anything you think we should know!

Enjoy!
Harvey, Emily, Matthew, Oliver, Joshua, and a few more...