WELCOME THINGS
Founder of Welcome Things, Jemma
From shopping in Cardiff's coolest arcades to owning one of their most colourful stores
For Jemma Afia, Cardiff's historic arcades have always been where the interesting shops were.
Growing up in the city and working in retail from the age of 16, she remembers a time when the arcades were the place to discover something different – independent shops with personality, unusual products and a certain sense of cool.
“It was always where all the cool shops were when we grew up,” she recalls. “If you were cool, you shopped in the arcades.”
Today, Jemma is helping to continue that tradition as the founder of Welcome Things, a colourful contemporary gift and lifestyle store in Royal Arcade, where the shelves are packed with playful, bright and sometimes cheeky products designed to make people smile.
The shop celebrates its fourth birthday on 3rd November 2026, marking another milestone in a retail journey that began long before Welcome Things opened its doors. Jemma and her business partner had both spent much of their working lives in central Cardiff. Their first venture was a Welsh gift shop near St John's Church, but as that business grew, they spotted an opportunity to bring something different to the city.
Inspired by the unusual gifts and lifestyle products they enjoyed discovering on their own shopping trips, they wanted to create a store that offered Cardiff customers something they couldn't necessarily find elsewhere. The result was Welcome Things: a shop with a carefully curated range, a distinctive sense of humour and an unapologetic love of colour.
For Jemma, the aim is simple: to make shopping enjoyable. And judging by some of the customers who visit, it's an ambition that's working. Alongside dedicated Jellycat collectors and regulars looking for particular products, Jemma has customers who come in for no reason other than to brighten their day.
“We have ladies who come in just to have a browse because it makes them happy,” she says. “They're having a bad day, and they just want to come in and have a little happiness.”
It's a lovely reminder that an independent shop can offer something beyond the products on its shelves. Sometimes, the pleasure is simply in discovering something unexpected. That sense of discovery extends to Royal Arcade itself.
Dating back to 1858, it is Cardiff's oldest shopping arcade, but its mix of businesses is anything but stuck in the past. For Jemma, it's the variety that makes the arcade so special.
“I genuinely think it's the best arcade. I'm not biased at all!” she laughs. “You could literally have a whole day out in this arcade.”
She's not exaggerating. Visitors can start with coffee or brunch, browse independent clothing shops, explore vintage and specialist retailers, pick up something from the dinosaur shop and stop for lunch at the ever-popular Fresh, whose queues are a familiar sight in the arcade.
There's something for almost everyone, and it's this mix of businesses that gives people a reason to linger rather than simply pass through.
The arcade also attracts an extraordinary range of customers. Office workers pop in during their lunch breaks, regulars return to their favourite shops and tourists discover the passageways while exploring Cardiff.
Some find them entirely by accident. Jemma describes visitors following directions through the city centre who enter Royal Arcade as a shortcut, only to stop in surprise when they realise what they've stumbled upon.
“They just use it to cut through and don't realise,” she says. “Then they're like, 'Oh my God, this is amazing!'”
Having spent her working life watching Cardiff's retail landscape evolve, Jemma understands why that reaction matters. She's seen shopping centres come and go, the development of St David's and the gradual shift in shopping activity towards different parts of the city centre.
But throughout those changes, the arcades have remained a constant.
“Cardiff's changed and moved and migrated around, but the arcades have always stayed,” she says.
And while the buildings themselves have endured, the businesses within them have continued to evolve.
Jemma points to the transformation of Castle Arcade into a destination for independent food and drink, while Royal Arcade has developed its own identity as a place to discover specialist shops and independent retailers.
It's that ability to change without losing their character that she believes makes the arcades so valuable. Unlike conventional shopping centres, where visitors can often find the same familiar names in every city, Cardiff's arcades offer businesses with individual identities, products and stories.
“You don't go from Bristol to Cardiff to visit the same shops,” Jemma explains. “The arcades are that point of difference. You find those little things that you're just not going to find anywhere else.”
And having worked for both independent retailers and major chains, Jemma knows the difference that comes with running your own business.
“Most of these shops are independent, and they really put their heart and soul into it. It's their life, and they do it because they love it,” she says.
Welcome Things itself has grown into a team of around ten people, with four additional seasonal staff recruited for the Christmas period – a reminder that even relatively small independent shops can make a meaningful contribution to the city-centre economy.
And Jemma isn't short of ambition. With so many products and ideas still waiting to be explored, she'd love to open another shop if the right opportunity came along. But she's also clear that the future of Cardiff's arcades depends on keeping them accessible to independent businesses.
For her, it's important that smaller traders can continue to afford these distinctive spaces, rather than seeing them gradually taken over by the same national chains found elsewhere.
“I hope they stay and maintain the space for independents to come and thrive,” she says. “Otherwise, towns will all be the same. It'll be really boring.”
And nowhere is the value of that independence more apparent, she believes, than at Christmas. While larger retailers follow coordinated campaigns and familiar seasonal displays, every arcade business can decorate its windows in its own way, creating a festive atmosphere that's individual, colourful and full of character.
For Jemma, it's one of the best times of year to be in Cardiff's arcades.
Almost four years after opening Welcome Things, she's still as enthusiastic about independent retail as ever. From a teenager who thought Cardiff's arcades were the coolest places to shop, to a business owner filling one of their historic units with the kind of unexpected discoveries she always loved finding herself.
The buildings may be more than a century old, but with independent retailers like Jemma continuing to bring fresh ideas to their shopfronts, Cardiff's arcades are showing no signs of losing their sense of fun.