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In Conversation With... UKG
Above and right: The relaunch of UKG’s Thinking of You brand with accompanying PoS reinforces its commitment to the independent retailer. Below: Figurative art features in the Palazzo collection in the Thinking of You collection.
Thinking Into Action
UK Greetings has not only been doing a lot of thinking about how best to support the independent retailer sector, it has turned these thoughts into action. The company has just relaunched its indie-focused Thinking of You brand, committed to a series of customer retail forums, devised a whole programme of initiatives for this sector and is now ‘Going for Gold’, an anewed customer service drive for its independent customers. PG found out more about UKG’s independent thinking. “Independent retailers are massively important to us,” assured Ceri Stirland, director of marketing of UKG, who has also just become president of the GCA (Greeting Card Association). With 25 years greeting card experience, both on the retailing and publishing sides, Ceri knows and understands the stresses and strains of both sides of the counter. Ceri was fabulously adept at delivering a potent presidential speech to a packed audience at the recent GCA AGM about the industry’s ‘big picture’, and was equally prepared to roll her sleeves up and get behind the counter of a number of independent retailer’s stores recently as part of UKG’s ‘out in the field’ programme. “The industry as a whole faces a number of challenges, both on the publishing and retailing fronts,” said
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PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE
Ceri.“We all have to brace ourselves for a huge amount of change. Independents are our biggest customers of our branded ranges,” she adds, citing the 3,000 independent rooftops UKG now supplies. Recognising that independents are a very diverse bunch, Ceri acknowledges, “Working with Darren Cave, our director of field sales, we need to get closer to understanding our independent customers and their customers so that we Below: Last week saw UKG’s director of UKG, Ceri Stirland (right of the centre board) become president of the GCA. Supporting the independent sector is crucial to UKG and the industry as the publisher’s recent independent retailer forum testified, the attendees of which included Louise Parker (Daniels, Windsor); Trevor and Jayne Griffiths (Sentiments, Whitchurch); Rachael Barnes (Dragonfly Cards and Gifts, Knaresborough) and Rawda Jehanli (Boswells, Oxford) pictured here with members of the UKG team, including Lois Holcroft (next to Ceri).
can provide tailored products and services that meet their needs and exceed their expectations today, tomorrow and in the future.” As Ceri reiterated in her speech at the GCA AGM, while the buying of greeting cards is very much engrained in the UK psyche 93% of the adult population buy cards (encouragingly on a par with the percentage who buy bread and chocolate) – the category, and indies in particular, will benefit from having more support. Ceri says part of this will be through supportive PoS, as well as advice, visual merchandising support and curated promotions (such as the current competition for free tickets for the upcoming Star Wars film) for independents. “We have lots more tailored promotions in the pipeline, such as getting indies involved