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cardsharp
Upping The Volume
On Real Life It’s tough out there for many in the greeting card industry at the moment. The V-shaped recovery of our domestic economy, that so much of the UK is said to be experiencing, is a little bit more of a left-shaped ‘tick’ for our industry, senses Cardsharp. A great number of a greeting card retailers are saying that they are still trailing 2019 sales figures by around 20%. And of course, city centre shops are doing a lot worse than local shops. Now, is most definitely the time to see off the zombies and turn up the volume on real life. While Cardsharp is naturally an optimist, in his ever-forgetful nature he sometimes forgets where he put his rose-tinted spectacles. Everyone was hoping for a boomtime Father’s Day - the first Covid-free Spring Season we have had since Valentine’s 2020 - but initial reports were pretty mixed. A very late rally did help, but it was certainly not the belter that we had all hoped for. There are still many card sending events that are just not happening at present. Large weddings (although the easing of restriction to allow 80 guests will help) have been prohibited. Children’s birthday parties, christenings and graduation parties have all been noticeable by their absence. Even big
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PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE
milestone birthday party celebrations have been postponed and unfortunately in many cases abandoned. And then just if not more than worrying, is the fear we are lurching into a 1970s-style comfort zone. Younger readers may not realise but this was an era of steady decline as everyone seemed to accept a period of, to quote the great a lyric from the great rock band Pink Floyd when we were ‘comfortably numb’. Have too many of us become numbed by lockdown? Life has been less pressured, and fewer people are being seen socially, and less money is being spent. Too many people, to the detriment of both retail and the greeting card industry, seem to be enjoying this 1970’s state of state-controlled comfort zone. For older readers, this was a period of economic and national stagnation and decline, arguably arrested by Margaret Thatcher’s election of Prime Minister in 1979.
Top: Time to turn up the volume on real life! Above: Staying home to watch the summer of sports is deemed as one reason people are not keen to get back to the office. Below left: The return of weddings and birthday celebrations will have a positive knock on effect on the greeting card sector.
Cardsharp found it incredible, that 71% of people polled supported the four week postponement of the delay of Freedom Day, which was supposed to happen on June 21. The lure of watching the Euros, Wimbledon and other summer sporting events must have influenced some of the respondents’ answers. There are plenty of incentives for employees to quote Covid concerns before getting back to work and into the fray. And to many the pre-Covid period seems a much too frantic and frenetic age that they would rather not go back to. It is no wonder