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cardsharp “£4.60!!? You must be having a laugh!” muttered Cardsharp under his breath. At least he hoped it was not audible, as actually the real expletive he uttered was a lot stronger than that. And a lot stronger than his coffee! Cardsharp duly presented his debit card with a sigh of resignation, causing him to realise the disparity in the coffee v cards economy. Cardsharp is gobsmacked at the current cost for his morning caffeine fix. A large skinny latte with an extra shot, from a well-known high street retail coffee brand was almost a fiver. Price inflation has this insidious way of creeping up on you. You don’t notice it until suddenly bang, a cost seems sky high and like a flash of lightening, you wonder what is going on. This unease was further deepened on a recent business trip to the US. Like any true cardie, Cardsharp’s first mission was to investigate the local greeting card shop offering and make comparisons with our Blighty offerings. Not much change from his last visit in 2019 he thought. In fact, most of the designs seemed pretty similar. Product development does seem to be rather slower on the other side of the pond, he mused. Admittedly, card displays over there are not helped by two factors. The sheer vastness of the displays as the stores are so massive and the rents so low. And of course, the fact that the postal system in the US puts a premium on square cards and odd shapes. The quirkiness of a good UK card display, even in in a UK supermarket, is totally absent in most mass market US stores that sell greeting cards. Cardsharp also noted a near total absence of foiling, embossing, flittering or embellishments on the cards on display. Again, nothing new there. But what really surprised Cardsharp was the prices. A bogstandard printed card
20 PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE
Above: Where have you ‘bean’, the cost of a cup of coffee has soared. Right: US store chains, such as Target, are selling cards at much higher prices than their UK equavalents. Below: Cardsharp feels it is time for a push up on card prices in the UK.
with no finishes costs over $5 including sales tax, the US equivalent of our VAT. Given the current rate of exchange that makes it around £4.80 for a greeting card, the equivalent of which would sell for around £2.75 over here. You don’t have to be a mathematician to work out that the margins in the States for both publishers and retailers are much higher than in the UK. That said, the pocket turn is much slower, hence most major US publishers can manufacture in the Far East and the notion of ‘just in time’ is less crucial. And it also means that the whole concept of digital printing of greeting cards has not taken off, so far! But it is not just mainstream publishers whose cards are selling at a mouth-watering price (to us anyway!). In the US, letterpress cards and stationery are so popular that they are virtually a religion among wellheeled consumers. Strangely, despite some
great passionate suppliers like Archivist and Penguin Ink, letterpress has never taken off to the same extent over here. Most of the US letterpress cards are pretty simple in design although lovingly produced, but in US gift or book shops, you are talking $6-$7 as the average retail price for a small card. That’s more than for a lovingly embellished handmade card from Five Dollar Shake, or one of Alljoy’s amazing threedimensional pop-up creations in the UK. This all leads back to Cardsharp’s feeling, that we in the UK card industry are selling ourselves short. Unlike the US where card