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cardsharp
History
Lessons
The middle of the 1990s was certainly one of the big periods in the greeting card industry history. It was a time when the two big American publishing giants, Hallmark and American Greetings, having divested themselves of their retail chains, both went on buying sprees, the scale of which has never been replicated, by acquiring many of the major publishers around. The result is the publishing dominance of the big two US giants we have today. Another momentous time was in the late noughties, when high street greeting card chains like Clintons, Birthdays, and Cardfair struggled to compete with the fast-
Top: The fact that The Battle of Hastings took place in 1066 is engrained in most people’s minds, and the Bayeux Tapestry is there to remind us of it all. Above: Card Factory has recently opened a store in Evesham. Above right: Postmark’s brand new store in Kings Cross, in the former Paperchase site.
22 PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE
emerging vertical sourcing model of Card Factory. This led to the business failure in one form or another of all of these chains. Both these periods were times of great transition, and it feels like we are in one of those years now. A lot is happening and Cardsharp feels there is plenty more to come. But to put this in perspective we need to reflect on how much has changed in our greeting card world in the last few years. After all it was only three years ago that we were in the middle of our first Covid lockdown. Online and supermarket card sales were booming, while the hitherto omnipotent Card Factory saw its share price drop to 18 pence and there was even a question mark about whether it would have to break its banking covenants. Those days seem like ancient history. Card Factory is now riding high again. A recent very positive set of financials, settled management team, and a share price that has risen well above the £pound mark again indicate its real resurgence post pandemic. Yet a new very strong contender in greeting card bricks and mortar is emerging. Nottingham-based Cardzone has been growing steadily for the last few
Cardsharp likes to think of himself as a bit of an historian, both of world events generally as well as the specifics of the greeting card industry. He reflected recently that although certain dates in British history are engrained in his mind, like 1066, 1940 and 1945, there is no one big ‘greeting card year’ that really strikes a chord. Instead however, there are batches of two or three year periods in the recent history of the greeting card industry during which some pretty dramatic changes have occurred. He ponders whether now is one of those.
years and its joint venture with Postmark has enabled it to successfully infiltrate the unique London market. And Postmark, already having secured some of the best transport hub locations that were formerly occupied by the now defunct Paperchase, will further strengthen its position. And it is not only London where Cardzone seems to be flexing its muscles. It would appear that Clintons has been shedding some more of its