The Ballet Shop - an island-country operation


Who is The Ballet Shop ? We run an internet operation, which is hosted in the Isle of Man. All our backdoor work happens in IoM - software and shop management in general. Here we manage queries and other issues relating to the operation of our website.

The actual shop operations happen in another little island, Malta. Here we have our stocks, and our physical shop, which stocks exactly the same items as the website. Naturally, we are not limited to sales in Malta - we ship to anywhere in the world. The Isle of Man is of course one of the countries we ship to and, what's more, charges are same as for the UK and the rest of the European Union. We are one of the few stores that does ship to IoM at no extra charge - and why should we, when the postage rates are the same?

Let's take a look at the items we stock. We have six main categories of dancewear: Accessories, Bags, Dancewear, Hosiery, Gifts and Shoes. Each is divided into a number of subcategories, to make it easier to find what you need.

The Accessories section covers hair items, like hairbands and bunholders, feet (such as ribbons and toe pads), flamenco items such as castanettes, and the odd items of make-up such as lipsticks, eyeliners and hand cream.

The bags section contains a few bags which we thought are most popular. Of course we can source other items, if you have anything in particular in mind - just drop us an email.

The Dancewear section contains an interesting selection of items that are well priced. They are also good quality and durable. Sansha's dance collection ranges from jazz pants, to leotards, a few short tops and others. We even have some knits for those who love adding a flair to their basic dancewear requirements. We find the two-tone leotards particularly attractive, while we think that the turtleneck leotards are also very elegant.

The Hosiery collection contains a variety of socks and tights that are commonly used in dance - fish net tights, convertible ballet tights, normal ballet tights, ballet socks... We have just provided a few links in this article but our range is wider.

We have succeeded in creating a very wide Gifts section. There are a variety of mini pointe shoe keyrings from two main brands: Sansha and So Danca. These come in a variety of colours and are worth collecting, besides making excellent gift ideas. We also have Sansha's mini ballerina keyring collection, and So Danca's other collection of keyrings such as tap shoe keyrings and jazz shoe keyrings. We also have some ballet-related silver plated jewellery, all of Sansha's original design.

Our Shoes category is probably the most popular. This is because we have done our best to keep our prices low for these items. You will find very competitive rates for our sneakers and our pointe shoes. Our other dance shoes follow suit, and are well priced and of high durable quality: we stock various other types of dance shoes. While we advertise the standard colours (pink for ballet, black for jazz), we do sometimes have alternative colours and you can always request a particular item to be sourced for you when making your order.

Our checkout system is secure. You provide your Credit Card details through a secure server, and this is only seen by ourselves. We do not debit your card until we are ready to ship. Our bank has an internationally good reputation and its payment processing systems are secure and reliable.

Finally, we generally post by registered mail. We only charge a nominal fee for postage - rates in reality are much higher. We try to ship as quickly as possible. Please view our terms and conditions of service, which we have fashioned into a FAQ section to make it easier for you to understand.

If you have queries on sizing policies, we have sizing charts for dancewear and for shoes. Of course, if you are still in doubt, please do not hesitate to send an email. We also have a blog, where we often review our stocks and are happy to receive any comments you may have!

We look forward to receiving more business from the Isle of Man - we do believe that like countries do well from trading with each other!