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International Market Report
The United
Nations
While not ideal for the nation's fortunes, the weakening of £sterling has made UK greeting cards even more attractive to distribute or licence the designs for their respective markets. PG went globetrotting to find out how the 'currency' of greeting cards is faring in various parts of the world.
AUSTRALIA
John Simson, managing director of Simson Greeting Cards: The year that was: “A major change in ownership in the Australian card market has just been finalised in that Artwrap (IG Design Group) acquired Biscay Greetings, a 47 year-old highly successful veteran company that operates in the value channel. Another change that came into affect at the start of 2018 is that Carte Blanche Group, which established a subsidiary in Australia less than five years ago, made the decision to entrust its brands to us at Simson (for cards and packaging) and Jasnor (for gifts) through a combination of distribution and licensing partnerships to cover this part of the world. Other changes of note are that, over the course of 2017, industry market leader John Sands reverted to being a subsidiary of UKG and almost all its product development for the Australian market is now generated out of the UK. The familiar UK brands like UKG, Hanson White, Gibson and Carlton are now common ‘back stamps’ in Australia. Similarly, Hallmark (which is the second biggest player in Australia, behind John Sands) is also procuring more of its design content from the UK for its Australian subsidiary. These changes might look sensible through an accountant’s eyes, but greeting cards are about communication between family and friends. While the Australian
greeting card design is far more reflective of the UK design genre than that of the US, Australia has its distinctive colour palette that emanates more warmth than the often colder UK palette. Likewise, the text on Australian cards is similar to the UK, but a little bit different language wise. While we create about 50% of our design requirements in our Melbourne studio, we also resource a significant amount of designs from the UK. The difference is that we then tinker with these UK designs to ‘Australianise’ them, something that seems to be working well with Australian consumers.” The Australian card market: “Everyday greeting card sales in Australia are holding up pretty well. Minor seasons continue to be challenging, with Valentine’s Day being either a disaster or just plain old bad, depending on what day the 14th February falls. Christmas in 2017 started even later than usual, but then picked up significant momentum and my hunch is it ended up on par with previous years.
Above: John and Bindi Simson, co-owners of the Simson Greeting Cards. Left and below: Christmas card sales in Australia will be severely damaged once stamp prices increase, fears John Simson.
The biggest challenge however facing Australian greeting card publishers is Christmas postage. In 2016, Australia Post (the equivalent to the UK’s Royal Mail), in response to it making massive loses in letter post, raised the price of stamps from 70 cents to Aus$1 (58p). This has had little impact on everyday cards, of which 80% are hand-delivered. For Christmas on the other hand, 80% of cards are mailed and Australia Post’s concession was a two year moratorium on Christmas card stamp prices, seeing them kept at 65 cents. This reduction expires in 2018, and if the price of Christmas stamps rise to $1 and $2.30 (98p) to the UK, then sales of Christmas cards that are already under significant pressure from digital Christmas letters could be seriously and permanently retarded.” PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE
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