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WHAT’S HOT? WHILE THEIR STORES HAVE BEEN PHYSICALLY SHUT, SO MANY INDIES HAVE BEEN ‘OPEN ALL HOURS’, SELLING VIA THEIR WEBSITE, FACEBOOK, VIRTUAL SHOPPING SERVICES AND BY PHONE. HERE TWO RETAILERS SHARE SOME OF THEIR RESPECTIVE TOP SELLERS DURING LOCKDOWN. Tracey and Chris Bryant, co-owners of Cats Whiskers (in Bishops Cleeve), Expressions (in Swindon) and Polkadot (in Keynsham) have beefed up their website incredibly during lockdown and sales have increased incredibly.
Category
Name of Publisher
Product/Name Range
Comments
Humour
Cath Tate Cards Dandelion Stationery Tracks The Eco-friendly Card Co (Glebe Cottage) Rosanna Rossi Woodmansterne Publications Cath Tate Cards Crumble & Core
Photocaptions General Father’s Day Fluff Single cards and the packs of notecards Across the board Emma Bridgewater
Woodmansterne Publications The Art File The Somerset Toiletry Company Michel Design Works
General
We all need cheering up and these humorous cards and our customers have loved these. Lovely designs and sentiments - and eco-friendly to boot! Rosanna Rossi’s designs just ooze quality while Emma Bridgewater has a good following as a brand. The popularity of gardening has grown while people love the ideas of getting a card and gift in one with the earring cards. We are in the process of broadening our children’s cards, but designs from these two publishers do well. Hand creams from all Right: The Somerset Toiletry Company’s ranges are doing well. Naturally European
Art Contemporary
Thinking of You
Children’s
Gifts Above right: Seed Cards from Cath Tate have sold well on the Cats Whiskers’ site.
Powder Designs
Seed Cards Earring cards
General Naturally European (Verbena especially) Foaming Hand Soap (Lemon especially) Hairbands
collection has sold well for Chris and Tracey’s customers.
There is a lot of unruly hair out there!
Rachel and Paul Roberts, co-owners of Mooch in Northampton, Olney and Towcester started their business online before moving into bricks and mortar, so not surprisingly www.lovemooch.co.uk was ready for the upsurge in online ordering.
Category
Name of Publisher
Product/Name Range
Comments
Humour
Redback
Cloud Nine and Holy Flaps
Art
Clare Maddicott/Abacus
Lemongrass
Contemporary
Lagom
Mini Cards
Thinking of You
Janie Wilson
Silver Leaf
Children’s
Wendy Jones-Blackett
Quicksilver Ages
Giftwrappings
The Art File
Across the board
Gifts
Sienna Glass One Hundred Stars Bespoke cushion
Bird feeders Kimonos and scarves Handmade
These have been brilliant - humour has definitely been a bigger category for us during lockdown. We’re increasing our range of humour for when we reopen. The bright colours and striking images make them stand out on the web. We also have two local artists who produce cards for us with local scenes on which have also been best sellers. These have been the single biggest selling range for us online. Customers tend to buy more than five at a time. A great option to send to their pals. We’ve offered a ‘write and send’ option for customers during lockdown and Thinking of You is probably one of the biggest categories (after humour) and this range has been super popular. And the cards are beautiful to write on too! These have been huge sellers during lockdown, especially the older children’s ages (9-16). Stunning, great quality paper with beautiful designs. We’ve been doing a lot of gift wrapping for our online customers and this is a Top: Clare Maddicott’s delight to wrap with! Lemongrass range has done We have had a big hit with a bespoke well for Mooch. Above: The interest in our cushion (made locally) we created to raise garden has been reflected in money for our local theatre (charity) - the the sales of Sienna Glass’ bird feeders. response has been phenomenal.
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PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE