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cardsharp
Factory
Farming
The UK greeting card industry’s largest specialist multiple retailer, Card Factory reported its latest financial figures recently including insights into its all-important Christmas trading. Cardsharp delves deeper into the figures and tries to draw some conclusions. Following on from Cardsharp’s column last month that focussed primarily on online card retailer Moonpig, its financial prospects and marketing campaigns, Cardsharp was given the opportunity to have a look at Card Factory’s recent performance and prospects. (Having bought some Card Factory shares when they hit rock bottom at 27 pence back the start of the pandemic back in April 2020,
competitors or independent retailers. Cardsharp suspects, an independent’s antipathy to CF probably depends on their respective physical proximity to a Card Factory outlet. Cardsharp was interested to read some of the responses to PG’s independent Retail Barometer survey. None questioned, saw the presence of Card Factory as a bonus, but a massive 68% were neutral about the chain. While over a quarter of respondents (24%) viewed the multiple as a threat, only 8% see it as a ‘major threat’. Perhaps this is an indication that even with Card Factory now trading from around 1,000 branches, Above: Being a PLC, Card Factory has to face the vagaries of share price fluctuations on the stock exchange. Left: The run up to Christmas saw Card Factory push its online sites on social media. Belowe: Card Factory now trades from over 1,000 stores.
Cardsharp admits that he does have a tiny vested interest in the value chain holding its value for shareholders.) Card Factory certainly divides opinions among the UK greeting card community. Some see it as a bellwether of the industry and as the sector’s only PLC it is in many ways our strong PR card with the City and media. Because of its vertical supply model, whereby most of its cards are produced by Card Factory itself, it is not popular with many publishers, and because of its low prices, it is not popular with multiple
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PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE
resilient indies have learned to live and adapt to this retail monolith. Card Factory recently released its trading figures for the last 11 months. Cardsharp needs to emphasise that these are not the full year’s figures so are open to interpretation. Its full year figures will be completed by the end of January this year, but they do allow for at least a stab at where the retail group is at present. For the 11 months until December 31, Card Factory reported sales of £357 million, which the board claimed was “ahead of expectations”. In 2019 (you can forget 2020 as comparisons mean nothing with the Covid pandemic) sales in the corresponding period were £424 million. But you have to take into account that in the first four months of last