88-89_Roundtable.qxp_Grid 21/08/2023 12:02 Page 2
Industry Issue
Christmas is coming... An impassioned kick off speech at the recent PG/GCA Retailer Roundtable set the tone which saw a host of leading indies sparking off each other to pool ideas on how to boost Christmas card sending this year. PG was all ears at the lively discussion, which took place in the afternoon immediately following The Henries judging, as initiatives involving charities, highlighting mental health benefits, window displays, celebrity endorsement, and a ‘purl’ of an idea involving knitting circles flowed freely. Kaye Thurgood’s customer observations from her two Sincerely Yours stores in Shenfield and Hornchurch, echoed by many others, contributed to the GCA pulling out the stops with its #Cardmitment Christmas campaign (see news), a PR programme with an overarching aim of reminding UK consumers of the power of cards in building connections, as well as how much they love sending and receiving them. Being at the front line of the industry, where consumer habits are in evidence every day in what they bring to the tills, independent card retailers not only know what’s happening, but are not backwards in coming forwards with their views and potential remedies. Hence the reason why tapping into the collective nous of The Henries live judging panel made perfect sense to the GCA, especially as it coincided with the formative stage of the plans for the #Cardmitment campaign. PG’s Jakki Brown joined with the GCA’s ceo Amanda Fergusson in welcoming the indies to this significant meeting of minds before handing over to Kaye, who pulled no punches in ramming home the importance of some collective action. “We used to look forward to Christmas, 88 PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE
but last year it was flat and depressing,” began Kaye. “Customers were coming in and telling us that they weren’t going to send cards – so this in turn meant people weren’t receiving them.” The problem, as Kaye explained, is that people used the then long-running postal workers’ strikes as an excuse not to bother with the 180-year-old Christmas card tradition – highlighting how riled she felt when a prominent TV presenter proclaimed on BBC Breakfast that they couldn’t see the point of sending Christmas cards and how he going to “do his bit for the environment” and not send any. “We can’t assume last Christmas was a
Top: The PG/GCA’s Retail Roundtable meeting to discuss boosting Christmas card sending.Above: The industry does not want a re-run of the media telling people not to send Christmas cards!
blip because people could get used to it as the new normal and stop sending cards anymore. We’ve got to take the bull by the horns and change sending habits.” Like other retailers finding themselves with a “huge pile” of unsold charity Christmas boxes and packs, Kaye discounted them in a January sale. “While I thanked customers for buying the Christmas cards in the sale, I also made a point of saying “the charity is now going to get at Left: One of Sincerely Yours’ Christmas windows. Below: Kaye Thurgood with PG’s Warren Lomax at The Henries judging.