January 2026
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From The Editor
ON THE CARDS “Someone asked me recently what Right: Postmark’s md Mark JansonSmith with PG’s Jakki Brown. it’s like running your own business. I Below: This year marks the 50th anniversary of Jackson’s. PG’s Jakki likened it to being on a rollercoaster Brown tries out the company’s wire that you can’t get off – it’s thrilling, buzzer game in advance of its trade show appearance with md Gary scary and relentless,” Mark JansonJackson (right) and his son and colleague Greg. Smith, founder of the Postmark retail Below left: Belly Button Designs’ group told me when I met up with founder Rachel Hare (right) with PG’s Jakki Brown. him recently as the leading greeting card and stationery group marks its 21st year. (See pages 38-39). It is a fitting analogy that so many fellow indie retailers, for starters, will be nodding in agreement with, following what has been a white-knuckle ride right through to the final knockings of the Christmas run up. Mark’s summary is also likely to ring true for family-owned Sheffield-based wholesaler and distributor Jackson’s (which is looking to kick off its 50th anniversary celebrations at Harrogate Christmas & Gift Fair this month (see pages 61 and 63)) as well as with Rachel Hare, founder and creative maestro of Belly Button Designs which is embracing its 30th year with a greeting card “renaissance” including going right back to the company’s roots with its hand-finished Signature collection. (See pages 48-49).
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This month also marks a major milestone for Warren and I as 35 years ago we clambered unwittingly into the ‘business owners’ carriage’ of the rollercoaster with the January 1991 edition being the very first Progressive Greetings magazine under our Max Publishing ownership. We enjoyed a somewhat selfindulgent look back down memory lane, we hope you do too. (See pages 32-37). However, while history informs the future, the focus of any business has to be on looking forward and being the first edition of 2026, fittingly the pages are brimming with product newness as well as inspiring thoughts and insights. While Chinese New Year has not yet started, this is the Year of the Horse which in Chinese culture is seen as a symbol of energy, independence and ambition. (See pages 23-29 for GCA Council members views on 2026) Whether you continue on the exciting rollercoaster or are galloping ahead on a trusty steed, I hope 2026 will be energising and enable you to realise your ambitions, in life and in business.
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Scan to check out our new catalogue
2026 for Ohh Deer brings lots of new products with the launch of Silly Beans, Jigsaw cards and Mugs E: wholesale@ohhdeer.com T: 01509 812 075
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CONTENTS
What’s Inside?
71
23
31
20 7-15 News
48-49 In Conversation with… Belly Button Designs The Renaissance Era
All the latest happenings and developments in the trade.
Belly Button Designs’ founder and creative maestro Rachel Hare shares how greeting cards are very much a focus for 2026.
18-19 Talking Shop A 20:20 Vision Of 2026? Indie David Robertson believes that the retailers surviving 2026 won’t be the loudest or the biggest, they will be those who are the clearest in their thinking.
20-21 Cardsharp Sense and Nonsense-ibility
51-55 Focus On… Company Milestones Happy Anniversary A celebration of some of the publishers and suppliers who will be marking big birthdays in 2026.
57-59 Retailer In Focus Salmon Fishing
Cardsharp looks back on the last three and a half decades of penning greeting card industry-orientated nonsense!
With Oliver Bonas’ greeting card sales very much on the rise, and the retail group now nudging 100 stores, PG caught up with Kate Salmon, head of home and gift buying and Lucy Cornwall, junior buyer for an update.
23-29 Viewpoints On The Hoof With 2026 being the Year of the Horse - a symbol of energy, independence and ambition – members of the GCA Council cite what they see as the biggest challenges as well as opportunities in the coming year.
61-63 In Conversation with… Jacksons Finger On The Buzzer Having started in the cellar of a drapers’ shop 50 years ago Jackson’s CRS has evolved into a leading distributor and wholesaler offering a selection of 30,000 different products to its 7,000 retail customers all over the world.
31-37 PG’s 35th Anniversary 35 Years of PG 1991 was an odd year. After the yuppified boom of the late eighties’ Thatcher era, Britain was well and truly mired in recession again. Into this PG, under Max Publishing ownership was born.
65-69 Innovations
38-39 Retailer Up Close Coming Of Age
71-77 Focus on… Christmas 2026 Design Trends Future Festivities
As Postmark comes of age, Mark Janson-Smith, founder of Postmark reveals some plans for this plucky 21-year old retail group.
Publishers lift the lid on the design nuances and captions that are reflected in the 2026 Christmas card collections.
41-43 Retailer Revelations Shopping For Joy
79-83 Art Source Trend Trackers
PG flicks through the recent John Lewis Shop Live Look report into consumer behaviours, cultural shifts and surprising trends that defined the last year for the retailer.
Artist agency and picture library execs share what they believe will be the cultural drivers of our creative tastes for 2026.
New ranges and designs, including a selection of Top Drawer launches.
85-86 What’s Hot? 45-47 Face To Face Putting Pen To Paper
A trio of leading retailers lift the lid on their best-selling ranges.
Moleskine’s new creative flagship store in London’s Battersea Power Station is a blueprint of how the leading stationery brand plans to approach retailing in the future.
87-94 Sources of Supply
Subscribe to Progressive Greetings from £60 (UK) to £90 (International). You can organise this quickly and easily online at our secure site: www.max-subscriptions.net For assistance, please email subscriptions@max-publishing.co.uk
Jakki Brown
Warren Lomax
Tracey Arnaud
Tracey Bearton
Editor/Joint Owner
Joint Owner
Sales Manager
Features Editor
Joint Owner
jakkib@max-publishing.co.uk
warren@max-publishing.co.uk
traceya@max-publishing.co.uk
traceyb@max-publishing.co.uk
ianh@max-publishing.co.uk
Use your smartphone app to scan the QR code to visit our website.
Copyright© 2026. While every effort has been made to ensure the information in this magazine was correct at the time of publication, the publishers cannot accept legal liability for any errors or omissions, nor can they accept responsibility for the standing of advertisers nor any organisation mentioned in the text. Views of contributors do not necessarily reflect those of the publishers.
Ian Hyder
PG is the official magazine for the Greeting Card Association GCA: Amanda Fergusson 020 7619 9266 Email: hello@gca.cards www.greetingcardassociation.org.uk
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NEWS TOP STORY Pitch Live returns to Spring Fair
GBCC x Dean Morris Clean Dean licensed range to launch at Spring Fair as well as a Pickled Prints collab Clean Dean is the work together to marry premise behind a our retailer and garden brand-new collaboration centres customers in the between well-known UK and overseas with his humour publisher Dean recognisable imagery and Morris Cards and the humour to bring it to a Great British Card more mainstream Company (GBCC). market.” Best recognised for Dean said: “I was Above: There are 12 designs in the his naughty cards, flattered and intrigued inaugural Clean Dean range from GBCC. Dean has worked as when approached by Below: Known for his humour, an indie publisher for GBCC, and this Dean’s antics at trade shows like over 25 years, and the PG Live always raise a smile. collaboration felt like a inaugural collection of 12 licensed brilliant fit right from the start. They designs launching at Spring Fair will really understand the market, and pair his bold and cheerful humour with together we’ve created a humour GBCC’s broad distribution and range that keeps my bold, cheeky different audience. style intact while promising designs “While Dean does publish non-rude that genuinely fly off the shelves to a cards, we see this collaboration as an new collection of retailers. I’m thrilled opportunity to get his great look into to see it launch at Spring Fair.” more places,” said GBCC ceo David Dean will be exhibiting all of his own Byk, explaining that he and head of cards on his stand at next month’s Spring Fair, which runs Sunday to Wednesday, 1-4 February, at the NEC in Birmingham, while the new licensed range will be showcased on the GBCC stand. David said the partnership was formed as part of GBCC’s ongoing strategy to expand its humour card offering, building on its established Humour Factory brand. And the collab is in addition to creative Lucy Ledger had been another partnership with James chatting about doing a range they Andrews, founder of Norfolk-based nicknamed “Clean Dean”. Pickled Prints, with that range also “Lucy then approached Dean on launching at Spring Fair having been this basis because we thought this initiated through a meeting at PG Live would be a great fit for us all,” David last June. GBCC already works with added. “Dean was hugely receptive humour publisher Bewilderbeest on and excited to explore how we could a licensed range.
Final festive push As PG went to press, retailers were bracing themselves for a final festive sales push. Although not all greeting card stockists were doing somersaults over the sales levels, there was plenty of Christmas cheer in other quarters. As John Procter, co-founder of Scribbler said: “After a slow start for us, not helped by the Budget which held back confidence, Christmas trade for us ramped up. Our sales of Christmas cards and wrap are already beating last year, and we still have a few days to go!” Sally Matson, owner of Red Card and Little Red in Petworth jubilantly proclaimed: “Little Red’s second Christmas has been huge while Red Card has sold more single cards and packs than ever before, which I find
Pitch Live is returning to Spring Fair, giving greeting card and gift Above: Pitch Live is returning for 2026. companies the Below: The SF Pitch Live chance to put their judging panel includes Voisins’ buyer Claire Smith. product innovations on front of a panel of retail judges at the show. In Spring Fair’s version of Dragons’ Den, there are three separate competitions across the show, which runs over 1-4 February at Birmingham’s NEC, for Gift products including cards, Fashion and Kids. Companies have until 13 January to submit their entries (via the Springfair.com website), after which three finalists will be picked for each category to make an in-person pitch to the judges including Claire Smith, buyer at Voisins department store; Judy Bendall, head of retail at Blenheim Palace; Rosie Troman, senior buyer at Nobody’s Child; Joanne Barker, owner at Hettie & Sid; and Deborah Jakobsen, founder and md of Roo & Little Boo. Each of the winners will receive a prize pack valued at £8,000 of a three-day outlet with the Co.lective pop-up shop in 2026; PR and brand strategy consultations with Sharon Good, founder of Good Results PR; a three square metre contribution towards a Spring Fair 2027 stand, and a free entry into the Gift Of The Year Awards. Spring Fair portfolio director Jackson Szabo said: “In a climate where independence, creativity and agility are more crucial than ever, Pitch Live offers a direct route to growth. It breaks down barriers for smaller brands and helps buyers discover fresh potential beyond established names.”
Right: Donna and postie Scott outside Little Red. Left: This Strictly themed card trended on Scribbler’s website.
astonishing. We have also sold more Christmas wrap than ever before.” This sentiment was echoed by Kaye Thurgood, owner of Sincerely Yours in Shenfield and Hornchurch: “Best we’ve ever had on Christmas card sales. We’ve had a sell-out of boxes and charity packs. Restocking the single cards continuously is exhausting, but satisfying to see so many people still embracing the tradition of Christmas card sending.” Similarly, Caroline Ranwell, owner of Hugs & Kisses in Tettenhall said: “We are having the best Christmas yet, which is just fantastic and makes all the hard work so worth it.”
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NEWS More Scribbler-ing
TOP STORY
Inflation Hits Cardfactory Card retail giant’s board “confident” despite share drop High inflation and the The statement said: pressures facing UK “Over recent months, the consumers have been pressures facing the UK blamed by Cardfactory for consumer have been well the trading update released a publicised. It is an few weeks ago, giving a inescapable fact that these lower than anticipated profit pressures have impacted forecast of between consumer confidence and £55million and £60m. shopping behaviour, Fitting in with the news of contributing to soft High Above: Before the recent trading GDP declining, and poorer Street footfall. Cardfactory’s share price was retail sales generally, it’s not update “Those conditions have around 96p, the same as a year ago. that bad a warning from the Below: Cardfactory has recently opened persisted as we moved stores in Farnham, Tunbridge Wells, greeting card, party and into our most important Cavan, and Liffey Valley. celebration retail giant – but trading period, leading to a the stock market’s reaction saw shares UK store sales performance which is lower drop sharply. than our previous expectations. Having hovered around the 96p-97p “Progress on our long-term strategy has mark, which was similar to a year prior, the continued through the period, including price had dropped from a high of 111p in effective execution of our Simplify and September – having been 143p in Scale productivity and efficiency September 2024 – opening on the London programme, as we continue to mitigate Stock Exchange at 80p on the day of the ongoing high inflation impacting UK retail trading statement, then falling to 69.90p as businesses.” trading got underway. Cardfactory has continued with its store The statement from Cardfactory’s ceo opening and relocation programme, and Darcy Willson-Rymer and chief financial now trades from 1,109 stores in the UK officer Matthias Seeger confirmed: “The and Ireland, having recently opened stores board remains confident in the group's in Farnham, Tunbridge Wells, Cavan, and long-term strategy. The share buyback Liffey Valley while its Maidenhead shop has programme will continue and the board been relocated and revamped. anticipates declaring a progressive fullyear dividend, in line with its capital allocation policy.” Explaining that the issues are specific to the UK, the company said performance of its other businesses, including those in the Republic of Ireland and North America, “remain in line with our expectations” and the integration of the FunkyPigeon.com online retailer arm acquired several months ago from WHSmith remains on track.
Scribbler’s latest outlet opened in the Cribbs shopping centre in Bristol recently, taking the group founded in 1981 and still owned by John and Jennie Procter to 36 stores in England, Scotland and Above: Bristol is Scribbler’s latest Wales, plus 24 print-onoutlet. demand kiosks inside other stores in the UK, and 17 kiosks across Ireland. John Procter, co-founder of Scribbler confirmed to PG that: “There are a few more potential locations for us lurking to potentially open next year!”
Something to write home about With it’s “better than a text” marketing above the card Above: Ryman Design now display, the Ryman has six stores with the Bluewater opening. Design arm of Theo Paphitis’ Ryman stationery store empire, is pinning its greeting card colours to the mast. Explaining that the team transformed its latest outlet at Bluewater Shopping Centre in just two weeks, adding to the sites in Birmingham and London, Ryman chief operating officer Michael Errington posted on social media: “Delighted to share that we’ve just opened our sixth Ryman Design Store - even better, this marks our fourth new store in just two months, an incredible achievement by the entire business.”
JL mega revamp John Lewis is stepping up with an £800million project to revamp its 36 department stores just three years after closing 16 outlets, one of the measures which saw the High Street favourite return to profit in 2023 following three years of loss coinciding with the pandemic shutdowns. Store revamps have already got underway at Oxford Street, High Wycombe and Reading, including the Waterstones shop-in-shop partnership, and the plans cover the £10m investment at Bluewater, with its first gifting emporium housing almost 1,800 new products and 14 new brands grouped by what it calls “passion points” such as home lover, hobbies and adventure, and botanist. (See pages 41 and 43)
Rosie Made A Thing x Coco Pzazz Chocolate and a giggle are great bedfellows and that’s exactly what’s occurring with the new partnership between Rosie Made A Thing and Coco Pzazz. After conversations with the Llanidloes-based company – who became chocolate experts by accident – started at the beginning of 2025, the Choccy Bar deal is now up and running, with 12 different RMAT licensed bars ready to launch this month. “Firstly, and most importantly, their chocolate is delicious,” laughed RMAT’s founder and creative genius Rosie Harrison. “Secondly, as a business, we loved their ethos. The cocoa used is sustainably grown, fully traceable and ethically traded. All the chocolate bar wrappers are 100% home compostable and biodegradable, made from renewable wood pulp.” Designs include new Rosie funnies and old favourites from her multi-
award-winning Gin & Frolics range, and there’s a range of flavours including salted caramel milk chocolate and zesty orange dark chocolate. Founded by Lori Whinn in 2013, Coco Pzazz came about after she began dabbling in chocolate-making a couple of years earlier to raise money for equine charities, and the business has grown to a Above: One of the 12 RMAT small factory where everything is handmade. Coco izazz Choccy Bars. All orders should be placed through Coco Pzazz, and the company is also offering two unique Rosie Made A Thing POS stands, to hold four or eight of the Choccy Bar designs.
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NEWS PG Live 2026 is booming
TOP STORY
Unique Paper Company x Lucilla Lavender Wrapped Up PG Live neighbourly stand chats result in a licensed wrappings deal The magic of Progressive Greetings Live has struck again, as adjacent stands reignited licensing talks between card publisher Lucilla Lavender and wrappings business, Unique Paper Company. Fast forward from last summer’s trade show and the two companies have announced a licensing partnership to produce designs from Lucilla’s classic Human Bean and Little Quirks greeting card ranges on Unique’s wrap and gift bags. “We’re delighted to be launching with both the collections, which bring something refreshingly different to our current offering,” commented Unique’s director Lydia Scamponi. “We’re incredibly excited about this partnership and look forward to what we hope will be the beginning of a long and creative collaboration.” The inaugural collection comprises five wrapping paper designs, available both as flat sheets and rolls, all printed and converted in the UK, and six coordinating gift bags that Lydia said: “Perfectly capture the fun, feel-good vibes of Lucilla Lavender’s artwork.” Lucilla, who runs the publishing business with business partner Anneke Driscoll, added: “We’re very happy to have worked with Unique on this
Left: The resultant Unique x Lucilla Lavender wrappings collection. Below: Lucilla with Nigel Willcock who kicked off the licensing talks.
wonderful wrap and gift bags project. The finished products are colourful, fun and celebratory, and we are delighted with the outcome.” The deal has actually been in gestation for a couple of years as Unique’s sales agent Nigel Willcock, who is also Lucilla Lavender’s sales manager, had been chatting to the now sadly departed Derek Hanley, who was a freelance sales manager for the wrap company. However, following Derek’s sudden death in December 2023, Lydia said: “All plans were naturally paused. It was only when we serendipitously found ourselves exhibiting opposite Lucilla Lavender at PG Live that discussions resumed. Having long been a personal fan of their Little Quirks and Human Bean card ranges — often choosing them myself for friends and family — I knew immediately how beautifully their charming characters, playful puns, and unmistakable illustrative style would translate into our UK-produced wrap.”
“Even though PG Live does not open its doors for another five months – Tuesday 2 and Wednesday 3 June – at London’s Business Design Centre, the exhibitor line-up is looking fab-u-lous darling!” exclaimed Warren Lomax, co-owner of the global greeting card show. Over 170 greeting card publishers, giftwrappings and affiliated companies have confirmed they will be exhibiting at the 2026 extravaganza, with many more in the pipeline. “As ever, we are working hard to ensure PG Live 2026 will sparkle with a wonderful array of publishers, from the well-loved to newbies, each launching lots of newness for retailers and international distributors to marvel at, and order!” added Warren. To register, head to www.progressivegreetingslive.com. To book a stand, contact Tracey Arnaud on traceya@max-publishing.co.uk
Opening the Skylight wider Longtime sponsor of PG Live and The Henries, web design and ecommerce business Skylight Media, has partnered with Blue Alligator to provide Shopify retail point-ofAbove: Skylight’s Simon sales systems. Pryce on stage at Blue Alligator said: “We The Henries. are excited to announce a partnership with Skylight Media following our release of the Shopify SNAP Connector for SalesPresenter. Skylight Media provides Shopify services with a particular set of expertise in the B2B/wholesale space. This really impressed us, and it became clear immediately that they could be of real value to our clients.” Skylight’s managing director Simon Pryce added: “We're delighted to partner with the Blue Alligator team as the SalesPresenter to Shopify API connector enables a much simpler end-to-end solution to what is often a complex problem.” The technology covers sales, marketing, pricing as well as warehouse data integration among other aspects.
GCA’s House of Commons cheers with Royal Mail, MPs and dignitaries Making the most of the opportunity to network with MPs, members of the Royal Mail senior management team and other dignitaries to promote and protect the UK greeting card industry, Amanda Fergusson, ceo of the GCA took up an invitation to a Royal Mail preChristmas Drinks Party at the House of Commons that was hosted by MP Adam Jogee. Amanda was able to talk at length with Royal Mail’s ceo Alistair Cochrane as well as with director of external affairs & policy, David Gold about what Royal Mail was doing to ensure a smooth Christmas card delivery service.
“On top of the extensive It’s So Much More Than Just A Card… marketing campaign, which centred around promoting Christmas card sending, I learned how 20,000 extra staff had been recruited help with the festive postbags, thousands of additional vehicles procured and extra premises taken on,” Amanda told PG. David Gold revealed that Royal Mail had received an incredibly positive response to its Magical Card Prize Draw which offered members of the public the chance to win a share of £500,000 for sharing a special Christmas card they’d just received.
Above: Royal Mail’s David Gold (left) and Alistair Cochrane with Amanda.
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Seasonal foliage and flowers come alive through the gifted brushstrokes of nature artist Marjolein Bastin. Paired with warm quotes and sentiment, these designs are an ideal choice for friends and family this Christmas.
Christmas 2026 available to order now! Discover the collection at www.trade.hallmark.co.uk UK - 0800 902 0900 | ROI - 1800 816872
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NEWS Lola’s Amanda Mountain ‘poppy-ied’ up on Channel 4
TOP STORY
Moonpig’s Greggs Seasons Eatings Online operator’s profits grow to £97m As Moonpig posted a 6.7% revenue rise ahead of ceo Nickyl Raithatha exiting the business, the online greeting card giant also unveiled the ultimate Santa gift – free Greggs sausage rolls! As well as a general advertising campaign, Moonpig’s crowd-pleaser of a collaboration with Britain’s favourite big bakery Greggs involved seven humorous card designs based on the food retailer’s famous pastry offerings with a purchase of each of the personalisable cards including a ‘send a free sausage roll’ offer that was pitched as the ‘season’s eatings’ campaign. Moonpig’s recently reported half-year results showed that its gross profit for the six months ending 31 October grew 3.7% year-on-year to £97million – and the brand said that, while its experience revenue dropped 8.9% y-o-y, recent trading results have been “encouraging” with overall revenue now at £168.6m. In his final trading comment Nickyl, who is to be replaced with Catherine Faiers as ceo on 2 March, 2026, said: “We have delivered a strong first half, with
Above: A still from Moonpig’s Christmas TV advert. Below: There’s was a free sausage or vegan roll voucher sent with each Greggs x Moonpig card.
continued momentum at the Moonpig brand complemented by a return to growth at Greetz. “I’m proud of what our outstanding team has built together during my seven years as ceo. Today, Moonpig Group is the leading online greeting card and gifting platform in the UK and the Netherlands.” Nickyl added that customers are engaging more deeply than ever as more than 50% now use its innovative creative features to make their cards ever more personal – and the Plus subscriber base for both Moonpig and Netherlandsbased Greetz has increased to 1.02million members.
Fast fwd to Top Drawer Billed as Fast Fwd To Design, Top Drawer (taking place SundayTuesday, 11-13 January at London’s Olympia) aims to gives a first look at the ideas, products and creative direction set to shape the season ahead. The Spotlight Awards will be returning at the show, designed to recognise standout brands exhibiting, and the UAL Showcase is back featuring new-to-market brands, while Launchpad gives the chance to meet emerging makers and fresh talent. A new element is The Social Studio, a hands-on creation space for learning, styling and refining techniques. Above: Sarah Epsom will be Visitors can book a one-to-one among the exhibitors. appointment with the retail experts in the Business Hub for tailored advice on everything from marketing to merchandising, there’s a Dragons’ Den-style Pitch Live event, and Retail Revealed Live has a session programme featuring industry leaders, trend experts and retailers aiming to reshape the sector. Among the greeting card companies exhibiting include The Art File, Ohh Deer, Poet & Painter, Happy Street, Jessie Maeve Above: A design from and Ornament Art. Retailer Maybugs Designs will also be Jessie Maeve Studio’s making its trade show debut as a publisher. Cottage Garden range that will be launched at To register, head to www.topdrawer.co.uk Top Drawer. (See pages 65 and 65)
Ahead of preparing to exhibit at Top Drawer, Lola Design’s co-founder and creative lead Amanda Mountain starred on Channel 4 recently, in an episode of A Very British Christmas demonstrating how her creative talents extend to Above: Lola’s Amanda making enormous paper Mountain (far right) with fellow poppies. Covering various paper flower makers. stately homes and their festive preparations, the programme featured Castle Howard where Amanda worked with CL Event Design on the Wizard Of Oz Wonderland display. Amanda said: “It was such a lovely day, and apparently my northern twang made a quiet comeback too!”
Hallmark changes at the top It’s all change at the top of Hallmark as the greeting card giant has taken the decision to combine the management of the UK and Continental Europe divisions under one operating team. The move will take effect under the leadership of Harvard-educated Simon Above: Simon Duggan-Hill, who has joined Hallmark Duggan-Hill is as ceo international. Simon’s previous Hallmark’s new CEO international. experience includes senior roles with Below: Graeme Henkel and Philip Morris Karavis. International. As part of this strategic change, Graeme Karavis, who joined the publisher as group managing director for Hallmark UKI & ANZ in April 2023 leaves the business. Additionally, Jan Willem Koch, managing director of Hallmark continental Europe is also leaving. In a statement released by Hallmark said: “Combining the management of these teams presents a great opportunity to improve Hallmark’s customer and consumer product offer and service, through leveraging shared talent and best practice, harmonising processes, and streamlining operations. There will be no impact on either company’s entity status as a result of this change.”
Dishing the dosh to 51 charities With the raffles at The Retas and The Henries contributing, industrywide charity The Light Fund raised an incredible £282,000 in 2025, enabling it to fund projects with 51 charities in 2026, helping thousands of men, women and children all over the world. Since the charity’s inception in 2004, it has raised over £2.6million. All submissions from any UK-registered charity for a project here or overseas to be completed in 2026 were considered by The Light Fund trustees and committee members, who individually vote for projects they’d most like to see funded, and those receiving the highest number received the go ahead. Left: The Light Fund trustees and committee members, which include PG’s Jakki Brown and Ian Hyder.
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CONTEMPORARY LETTERPRESS CARDS PRINTED IN THE UK
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NEWS TOP STORY
Reds Are Top Date Liverpool FC led annual Danilo’s calendar chart Having topped the Premier League last May, Liverpool FC has also triumphed in the calendar league for the second year running, highlighting football’s resilience in Danilo’s top 10 titles for 2026. Holding off the challenge from new title KPop Demon Hunters, which entered the list at number two, Liverpool held onto top spot, while rivals Manchester United dropped to two places to fourth, and Arsenal kept the sporting contingent red although the London club dropped from fifth to eighth. KPop Demon Hunters is Netflix’s smashhit animated musical which has become the streaming platform’s most-watched show, with fans keen to snap up licensed merchandise, while another kids’ favourite, Bluey, climbed from sixth place when it entered the charts last year to come in third for 2026 calendars. Wicked climbed from ninth to fifth, with the calendar having stills from the latest release in the franchise Wicked: For Good, which hit cinemas at the end of November, but Disney’s Stitch
New bespoke arm for Out Of The Blue Studios Wholesale card publisher Out Of The Blue Studios and its DTR sibling Into The Green are expanding from their publisher base, using its own team of designers to work on bespoke own-brand projects, under a new Blue Create operation. Already successfully producing designs for the UK, Canadian and US markets, sales director and co-owner Pete Rawlingson said he is very pleased with progress at Blue Create: “We have been investing heavily in product development and our direct website business, which is gaining momentum.” Blue Create’s design team is set up to develop designs and ranges to specific briefs, include price points, style, finish levels and product quality. “During the design process and brief, we give clear indication on pricing, so clients have clear margin aspirations to have product that achieves the right retail and value,” explained Pete. With Out Of The Blue Studios also having its own buying office in the Far East, the team covers quality control, technical and logistics.
Above: Liverpool FC topped the chart again. Above right: KPop Demon Hunters came second. Below left: Evergreen Sir Cliff’s popularity persists.
dropped to ninth place from fourth. Sixth place went to the recently reformed 90s band Oasis, still riding high after their comeback tour this year while 85-year-old British pop legend Sir Cliff Richard’s popularity persists, reaching seventh place in the table.
Danilo’s 2026 Calendar League (previous year’s position in brackets) 1. Liverpool FC (1) 2. KPop Demon Hunters (new entry) 3. Bluey (6) 4. Man Utd FC (2) 5. Wicked (9) 6. Oasis (8) 7. Cliff Richard (7) 8. Arsenal FC (5) 9. Disney Stitch (4) 10. Stranger Things (new entry)
Above: The new Blue Create studio is backed by the Far East production chain Below: All 2026 Out of the Blue Christmas products support Spread A Smile charity.
US Tariffs cost IG Design Group while Tesco put its wrap on the buses IG Design Group has blamed the impact of the US import tariffs for contributing to a 13% fall in revenue in the greeting card, gift packaging, party and stationery company’s interim results. The group said the drop to £98.55million Above: Stewart Gilliland presenting the results ($131.4m) for the six online. months ended 30 September from £113.6m ($151.3m) reflected softer UK demand, the impact of European pricing pressures, and the timing of shipments moving into H2 as well as the US tariffs brought in earlier this year by US president Donald Trump. Design Group’s adjusted operating profit for the period was £4.27m ($5.7m), less than half of the £9.66m ($12.9m) from the year prior, and the adjusted operating margin of 4.3% fell
year-on-year due to the impact of lower sales, partly offset by cost savings and freight tailwinds. Stewart Gilliland, the group’s interim executive chair said: “IG Design delivered a solid performance in the period. This was supported by disciplined execution and firm cost-control measures across the group. While the macro-environment remains mixed, we know exactly what we need to do to continue strengthening the business.” Meanwhile, one of the designs created by the company made it big for Tesco in the run up to Christmas. Tesco’s Christmas advertising activity included plastering a giant sized sheet of wrapping paper, created by Design
Group UK on five of London’s iconic red double decker buses, plus two each in Birmingham and Manchester, with the campaign message: “Thinking you’ve bought enough wrapping paper. That’s what makes it Christmas.” “We’re incredibly proud to see our design talent showcased in such a highprofile way,” Katie Brickle, DG UK brand and marketing manager, told PG. “It’s always rewarding to see our artwork brought to life beyond the shelf, and to have our designers’ creativity celebrated on a national platform.” Left: The festive design by DG UK’s creative designer Rachel Snelling on a London bus!
FOR THE LATEST NEWS VISIT PGBUZZ.net PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE 15
NOT ONLY
OUTRAGEOUS HUMOUR...
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OVER THE
COUNTER
BY DAVID ROBERTSON OF JP POZZI, ELGIN AND BUCKIE.
A 20:20 Vision Of 2026? Being in business can be a lonely, but I count myself lucky that I have my mum and other friends in the industry who I can speak to. They listen, reassure me and guide me towards decisions. So, what will 2026 bring? Undoubtedly more challenges with Governments that either are not interested or don’t understand small business that really is the lifeblood of the economy, but we still need to steer our respective businesses. In the last fortnight two different friends have spoken to me at length about their businesses and just how challenging life is for them. I was also interviewed after the latest Budget announcement. The questions were all about the challenges for 2026 and one of my key points was that if you are worried, you should speak to someone (be it a fellow business, a group such as Chamber of Commerce or a professional, such as your accountant or banker). Don’t sit on your own letting things eat you up and I urge that message to all of you reading this. The reality of many small businesses is
now that they are constantly having to pivot and adapt to survive. In boxer parlance, you need to be on your toes not the balls of your feet. The High Street quite simply can’t come back as it once was. It has and is changing, and at a more rapid rate than ever before. Walk down almost any UK high street and you’ll see activity. Shops are open. Customers are browsing. Money is still being spent. And yet, behind the scenes, many retailers are struggling more than ever to turn that activity into sustainable profit. In 2026, the retailers that survive will not be the most digital, the most efficient, or even the most innovative. They will be the ones who have made hard decisions. For too long some have blamed competition from the huge online players, but perhaps the Left: Countering consumer apathy is a retailer’s biggest challenge, more need to be wound up to visit the high street.
18 PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE
Top: The coming year will all be about having clarity and focus believes David Robertson. Above: There is no retailer in the land who would like an increase in footfall.
biggest threat to our business is indifference. Everything is always marked as a battle - Online v High Street - Indies v Chains, but there is room for all. Your customers don’t see a battle. They are deciding: ‘Do we want to spend or not?’ In 2026, customers will not be deciding where to shop, they will be deciding whether to shop at all. It’s not a simple as Amazon v your shop. The huge upturn in living costs, the rise and acceptance of second-hand platforms and a bigger point of ‘do we need more stuff at all?’ comes into play and affects not only our sales, but every business. This is why so many retailers feel busier than ever, but more broke than before. The uncomfortable truth is this is that most retailers are not being rejected, they are being ignored. This indifference or lack of passion for shopping is far harder to combat than anything else.
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OVER THE COUNTER I have long since trotted out the phrase that ‘the middle is the most difficult and dangerous place to be’ and I feel this will be even more accurate in 2026. The High Street has long been built on the promise of ‘good quality at a fair price’. This brings us back to the questions all of us indies ask ourselves… what are you? Are you a card and gift retailer that appeals to all? Are you a specialist with a particular focus? Consumers now understand pricing better than at ever before. They know when something is cheap, when something is premium, and when something is simply overpriced for what it is. Look at the major discounted supermarkets, they win through by being very efficient in the ways they operate. Their ranges are tight, admittedly often versions of leading brands, and price is the focus above all else. At the other end, perhaps where many of us sit, we rely on customer connection, superior design and better service. So, is our business relevant in the way people want to live, eat and shop? This is the High Street’s larger problem. People are now opting for destinations such as garden centres where they can park for free, have a reasonably priced lunch or coffee and maybe pick up a few things to buy on their way out. In my opinion, the rise of greeting cards in garden centres continues to present a far bigger challenge
Above: The major value grocery retailers, including Lidl are gaining ground for their clear approach. Right: Loyalty from your team, customers are vital. David with his colleague June, who has recently retired after being part of the team for 20 years.
than any online platform presents. The High Street needs to choose what it is and stick to that belief. Often, of course, we indies operate in the space between the main High Street and the out-of-town destination. We are usually in a secondary location with an established and loyal customer base who expects us to keep being different and finding different products. This is a challenge, but one we must embrace to remain relevant and wanted.
Above: David delivered his retailer wish for 2026 to Santa in Lapland, with his wife Nicky and son Hudson. Right: Every business needs to find their own road in business.
The coming year will no doubt see many more chains and high street brands look seriously at their retail estates. How does this affect us you ask? Well, this can cause instability as we may have relied on these fellow retail brands to bring customers to our area. In 2026, stores that cannot clearly demonstrate why they are there will just keep slowly draining cash. The big retailers that win will ruthlessly edit their estates — not just by closing stores, but redefining what the remaining ones are designed to do. Each store needs to have a clear purpose. So, what can we learn from this? Well really, we just need to keep focusing on why we are there and who we are servicing?
Sometimes certain products change the customer coming into our store and we need to react to and amplify that. Another huge challenge for all stores is the people that work in them. Retailers used to be able to fill positions relatively easily, but as we all know recruitment is harder, retention is tougher and experienced good operators are hard to find. Couple this with the fact that customers expect a better service and we have a problem. It can’t simply be about a ‘wages to turnover’ ratio or slashing hours. In pursuit of wanting to improve our sales data I went on an AI seminar, but this confirmed that technology is not a silver bullet and AI can’t run your business for you. Good tech will support and improve good decisions, clear leadership and good operational habits, but without that you won’t get any further, in fact the fancy software package may expose weaknesses. I believe loyalty will be a key word for 2026. Whether this is from your team or from customers, it is something that we indies rely on. Loyalty can be confused with repeat behaviour. Real loyalty will come if you are consistent in how you treat people, have reliable stock availability, clear pricing and that little ‘X factor’ of service, fun or simply a nice atmosphere in which to shop. So, the key questions that I have been mulling over in my head for months is not how do I get more people in the store, or how do I manage my costs further or how I can change, but why does a customer choose us today tomorrow and next year? It should be that my store is stocked and looking exactly how my customers like it. It should be that I am proud of the store and everyone that works in it and represents it. It should be that each brand value working with me supports me in the way that I need. I think that the retailers that survive 2026 won’t be the loudest or the biggest, they will be the clearest in their thinking. Clarity, above all else, may be the most important mantra to live by in 2026. Keep focused and your eyes open! l To contact David email:
jppozzi@btconnect.com PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE 19
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Sense and Nonsense-ibility
There has been coverage galore of the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth with festivals, exhibitions and events to highlight her body of works, among the most notable being Pride & Prejudice, Mansfield Park and Sense & Sensibility. While accepting he is in a different league to the Regency novelist, with this edition of PG marking the 35th anniversary of Cardsharp’s first column, he looks back on the last three and a half decades of penning greeting card industryorientated nonsense!
journalist reporting the facts in a supposedly unbiased manner (like Cardsharp’s editor Jakki Brown and her experienced journalistic sidekick Tracey Bearton) but create articles that offer commentary and opinions from a personal point of view, in this case under a pseudonym. In effect you start with a completely blank page and then come up with a topic or theme that you not only feel comfortable writing Above: A Jane Austen classic that is published by Flame Tree Publishing. about, but on which you Right: Times’ columnist Matthew Syed has provided plenty of food for thought for Cardsharp over the years. also have a view. This is If his maths is correct, you are reading fine when there are a lot of interesting Cardsharp column number 408, not that he industry happenings, but a bit more is able to recall all of them. challenging when there is However, Cardsharp did take a look back no ground-breaking news at his first article in PG January 1991. In occurring. Finding a topic this he focused on the wholesale sector, or theme then becomes very fitting considering how strong that more difficult, resulting in sector of the market was back then. In that Cardsharp scouring the edition he compared the views of two news media for wholesalers - one an optimist and the other developments that he can a pessimist - about the year ahead. At that link to greeting cards. He time the UK was somewhat mired in also takes inspiration from recession. We talk about flat growth now, a lot of the columnists but in 1991 the economy was actually writing in The Times contracting. In some ways it seems like whose work Cardsharp yesterday, but in others it seems like admires, namely another world. Matthew Syed, the As Cardsharp reflects, being a columnist young James Marriott is an odd task. You are not a ‘proper’ and the hilarious Jeremy 20 PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE
Clarkson. Luckily for Cardsharp, he has always been passionately interested in current affairs and history and always finds something to write about. The second half of the 1990s was probably the easiest time for Cardsharp. This was the boom time for the greeting card industry and barely a month would go by without a major acquisition at either publisher or retail level. It was when Andrew Brownsword sold his eponymous publishing company to Hallmark for an estimated £200 million, and Hallmark bought Creative Publishing for a figure nearly as high. It was also when American Greetings, now UK Greetings expanded by acquiring among others, Camden Graphics and Hanson White. It was the period when Clinton Cards seemed to be buying every retail chain that moved. While the late nineties witnessed the decline of the wholesale trade and the expansion of the supermarkets into greeting cards. Ironically although he had long forgotten some of the big issues over the years, he does remember some of the more esoteric columns which obviously coincided with a quiet news month. He recalls linking greeting cards to among other topics, to Zeno of Citium, the Ancient Greek stoic philosopher; Black Sabbath, the
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Left: Cardsharp has a lot to thank Black Sabbath for! Below left: “We have two ears and one mouth, so we should listen more than we say” and “Man conquers the world by conquering himself,” are the sage views of Zeno of Citium, the founder of Stoicism that Cardsharp has tapped into. Below: Cards Direct has quietly built to a chain of 90 stores and counting.
legendary heavy metal band; Huddersfield football club and the Anglo-French Seven Years War of the 1750s. Don’t ask how! In recent years, there have been fewer major company developments for Cardsharp to cover, as big publishing and retail acquisitions have become as rare as hen’s teeth. But the Royal Mail, Temu and tariffs, have kept him busy. Sadly, too many of the retail stories in recent years have involved financial restructuring or even liquidation, where its been publishers and landlords who have had to take the pain. Cardsharp would be very happy if he did not have to write about asset stripping bottom feeding companies ever again. And as for the major players in the greeting card industry in 1991, where are they now? In publishing terms wholesale was still very strong with over 50% of the market when it came to volume. Big names like Simon Elvin, Kingsley Cards, Hambledon Studios, Second Generation, Beaucards and Regent dominated. However, the shift to direct to retail, means that out of all of
these names, only Simon Elvin survives, with Simon Elvin himself still running the eponymous company all these years later. UK Greetings dominates the UK publishing scene nowadays supplying, through brokerage nearly all of the major grocers, mixed multiples and thousands of independents around the UK. It is hard to believe back then it was a near basket case and just starting its revival under a brilliant new md Stuart McKay, who sadly passed away last month. And as for the retail scene, so many of the big names have gone. Woolworths was the joint market leader with WHSmith high street when Cardsharp first took up his PG pen. Both no more. Athena was at the trendier end of the market yet experienced a spectacular collapse in 1996. There were a handful of publisher-owned high street specialist card chains - other than Forget Me Not, Cardsharp
cannot recall their names! These were each in turn swallowed up, largely by Clintons, who in turn hit the buffers in 2011, although managed to survive in slimmed down form before being acquired by Paul Taylor a couple of years ago. There was no Card Factory, Cardzone or Cards Direct, though Paperchase and Scribbler were around. But Cardsharp reflects this does not make our industry unique. He is sure that most retail facing industries have undergone a similar metamorphosis over the last 35 years. What does make our sector unique though, is the sheer volume of challenges it has and continues to confront and see off as an industry. The internet, text messaging, ecards (who sends them these days?!), changes to the postal system, print on demand, copying, and the decline in bricks and mortar shopping. Such challenges would have destroyed most industries, but Cardsharp is reassured that although arguably a bit battered and bruised, the UK greeting card industry still leads the world and greeting cards remain a fabric of British society. So, column number 408 is duly completed and submitted to the editor. Cardsharp feels sure that 2026 will deliver lots to discuss that he will pen with pride and hopefully with not too much prejudice! Below: Clintons and card buying ‘in the pink’ at the retailer’s Cotswolds Designer Outlet store, near Tewkesbury that opened last July. Bottom: Not sure Cardsharp’s fandom will ever reach the popularity of the film based on Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice that starred Jennifer Ehle as Elizabeth Bennett and Colin Firth as Mr Darcy.
PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE 21
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VIEWPOINTS Above: There’s a lot riding on 2026!
On The Hoof
According to the Chinese zodiac, 2026 will be the Year of the Horse, which in Chinese culture is seen as a symbol of energy, independence and ambition. PG lassoed members of the GCA Council to ask them what their ‘rising trot’ wish would be for the magic horse to grant for the greeting card industry; what they cite as the biggest challenges as well as opportunities they see for the GCA and the industry in the year ahead.
Wendy Jones-Blackett, co-owner and creative director of Wendy Jones-Blackett Opportunities for 2026: “With Royal Mail’s endorsement of card sending over this Christmas period (with TV ads, a social media campaign and competitions) we hope for more of the Above: Wendy Jones-Blackett on one of her many same for other key occasions media appearances in 2025 during which she has over the coming year - fingers been promoting the greeting card industry. A piece to camera recorded for BBC Yorkshire was crossed! The GCA will keep reused on BBC Breakfast. plugging away promoting card Below: Wendy would love to see a greeting card equivalent of Sewing Bee. sending and the great value of cards both financially and emotionally.” Key Challenges: “Businesses that employ staff have had to adjust to further increased payroll costs which has been a financial hit. Even if you’re a card publisher with no employees you no doubt buy from suppliers who do have multiple staff and sell to shops who also face these challenges. Supporting them generally means paying more and charging less which leaves publishers squeezed in the middle! So, everyone has to do their bit and absorb these extra costs.” Trot On: “I’d love to see cards featured more in TV shows, films and social media; they’re part of the fabric of our lives. A card version of the BBC’s series, The Great British Sewing Bee or Bake Off would be fab!”
Daniel Prince, treasurer of the GCA and managing director of Danilo Opportunities for 2026: “This year offers strong momentum for the industry, with the UK public continuing to spend over £1.5bn on greeting cards. There is a clear opportunity to grow everyday sending, tap into major cultural and entertainment Above: Channelling his inner equine self, moments, and build on the Daniel Prince in the Danilo boardroom which has framed images from Frankie public’s love of connection Dettori’s calendar which the company through physical cards. published a decade ago. Below right: Royal Mail’s drop in delivery For the GCA, it’s a chance to service and increased prices remain a challenge for the card industry. further amplify the value of our industry - through advocacy around postal services, championing creativity, sustainability and innovation, and supporting retailers and publishers with practical insights and collective initiatives that strengthen the whole sector.” Key Challenges: “Royal Mail’s service reduction plans and increased pricing have remained one of the biggest challenges. Rising production costs, the impact of new US tariffs on paper goods, and uncertainty following the latest UK Budget have also shaped the year, influencing export competitiveness, retailer confidence, and forward ordering across the greeting card sector. Despite this, the industry continues to show strong resilience, buoyed by newness, brilliant design, licensing growth, and the enduring emotional value of sending cards.” Trot On: “My magic horse wish list for 2026 would be… 1. A fast, reliable Royal Mail. 2. Improved footfall across the high street. 3. A UK Budget that meaningfully supports British businesses.” Right: Danilo’s connection to societal tastes through producing licensed greeting cards includes a range of women’s football greeting cards, from individual clubs as well as the national Lionesses team. Joining Brian Waring, customer and commercial executive director at Cardfactory, which stocks the cards, Danilo’s licensing director Dan Grant met with MP Helen Maguire who praised the range.
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VIEWPOINTS Karen Wilson, GCA president and owner/director of Paper Salad Opportunities for 2026: “Looking ahead to 2026, it's exciting to see the many initiatives we’ve been working on begin to gather real momentum. A Above and left: The GCA’s new Card Club great deal of work initiative provides teachers and children’s has been going on group leaders with the behind the scenes wherewithal to get primary school children across several creating and sending cards. projects, and it will be wonderful to see these come to fruition. Card Club in particular is shaping up brilliantly, thanks to the tremendous effort Raspberry Blossom’s Rebecca Green has put into it.” Key Challenges: “There have been many challenges for the GCA over the past year, particularly around the ongoing Royal Mail issues, which we are all well aware of. In addition, the rise in plagiarism by
Ashton Duckitt, strategic account director – High Street at UK Greetings Opportunities for 2026: “Digital fatigue and the exciting future of Card Club! There's growing momentum among parents seeking tangible, meaningful ways for children to connect beyond screens. As a mum myself, I see firsthand how screen Above: New to the GCA council, Ashton Duckitt. time concerns are driving Below: One of the billboards in the families to rediscover the Smartphone Free Christmas campaign which aims to get children value of physical, personal off screens and into ‘real life’. gestures. Teaching children to choose, write and send a card creates moments of thoughtfulness that apps simply can't replicate. The greeting card industry has a genuine opportunity here, not just as a product category, but as a tool for teaching empathy, handwriting and the art of thinking about others. We can be the sector that helps the next generation learn to express care and mark occasions meaningfully and to secure the relevance of cards for decades to come.” Key Challenges: “As retailers rethink store formats greeting cards must fight harder to justify their footprint. The challenge is moving beyond ‘cards have always been here’ to providing robust data on footfall, basket building and category contribution.” Trot On: “The ambition to build the next generation of card senders by making tangible connection a celebrated part of childhood.”
online businesses such as Temu has been a significant concern. The GCA has been instrumental in challenging this pernicious practice and has achieved notable success in seeing infringing designs be taken down. This represents a major achievement for the industry - one that deserves recognition and celebration. It’s something we should be proud of and make sure we shout about!” Trot On: “As we gallop into 2026 - the Year of the Horse, no less - it feels only fitting that I’m taking the Below: Karen Wilson with David Byk, GCA Council member and reins as President of the GCA. Horses ceo of Ling/GBCC/Penny Kennedy at the trade association’s recent are known for their energy, Conference. determination and ability to carry a lot on their backs which feels like excellent preparation for the year ahead! So, saddle up everyone - there may be the occasional bump in the trail, but with teamwork, momentum and the odd sugar cube along the way, I am confident the GCA and the greeting card industry will be charging forward together!”
Mark Callaby, vice president of the GCA and joint managing director of Ohh Deer Opportunities for 2026: “I’m always impressed by our industry and how we keep finding new and exciting ways to promote and sell greeting cards, and I don’t see that slowing down. The GCA Council is in a great place too. It feels genuinely passionate, collaborative, and aligned on doing what’s best for the whole industry. I’m especially excited about the opportunity to engage the next generation of card senders Above: Mark Callaby. through The Card Club. And while we’ve had a Below: Kantar’s research has showed that the UK public spend tough battle with Royal Mail this year, it’s more on greeting cards than they do on toothpaste! helped put card sending back in the spotlight. The media coverage has been strong, so hopefully the positive message around sending and receiving cards carries into 2026.” Key Challenges: “The wider retail environment has been difficult and remains a worry, made tougher by continued price rises and tax increases in so many areas. From an Ohh Deer perspective, US tariffs and the uncertainty around what might be around the corner have also been a challenge. It feels like a risk, particularly when we invest heavily in the US market. Thankfully things do seem to have settled a little, but it’s still something we have to watch closely. And of course, Royal Mail continues to be a major challenge for the industry.” Trot On: “Our wish is that people will be galloping into their local independent shops and buying more cards than ever before (and maybe toothpaste too, based on the brilliant fact from the GCA Conference that British people buy more cards than toothpaste!).” PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE 25
2026 COLLECTION See it in print, online and at Spring Fair 2026:
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VIEWPOINTS Nick Carey, managing director of
David Falkner, director of Cardology
Abacus Cards
Opportunities for 2026: “Our key opportunity is focus. Cards remain central to the moments that matter most in people’s lives, and in 2026 the industry’s growth will come from how well we build around that. The winners will be those telling clear, co-ordinated gifting stories - bringing cards, gifts and keepsakes together to make buying easier and more meaningful. What we should be famous for is helping people celebrate moments better, not just selling products.” Above: David Falkner. Key Challenges: “2025 tested us, but it also clarified who we are. Pressure on footfall, household budgets and costs pushed the industry to be sharper, more creative and more collaborative. The lesson is clear: when we show up with strong ideas, clear value and joined-up stories, consumers respond. That’s the foundation we should build on Below: Cardology is seeing the benefits of building curated bundles and co-ordinated gifting in 2026.” collections in the belief that when cards create Trot On: “If the 2026 Horse the connection, the wider story helps make the moment memorable. could carry one message into Whitehall, it would be this: Connection drives growth. Greeting cards offer one of the most human and accessible ways people connect in an increasingly divided world. Affordable, dependable post keeps that connection moving and gives this industry the platform to grow - both at home and as a key British cultural export.”
Opportunities for 2026: “I see the opportunity for our industry to keep promoting the joy of sending a card. Promoting this at a young age in schools and as teens! I think if we can make it cool for teens to send cards, we’d be in a great place. The opportunity for the GCA is to keep including more contributors to our Council and committees, to work Above: Nick Carey. Below: An Insta post by Taylor on the GCA’s key objectives. Working Swift with her albums. How great it would be if she was in the Council has shown me the promoting greeting cards?! breadth of experience and the difference the GCA makes. However, we still need more knowledge, more willing retailers, and more willing contributors.” Key Challenges: “The political and economic environment has not given a platform of surety and growth for UK retailers and manufacturers alike. The USA with its tariffs, the UK with budget leaks, U turns, small boats, scandals, pay increases and tax increases have all slowed the appetite to invest or spend. The UK needs greater political and economic stability.” Trot On: “My plea for 2026, the Chinese year of the horse is for some of the world’s biggest influencers to put card sending at the forefront. Imagine if Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Drake, The Weekend, Ariana Grande, Ed Sheeran etc. could be seen posting, opening, writing a greeting card!”
David Byk, ceo of Ling Design and GBCC Opportunities for 2026: “Actually I think we start 2026 in pretty good shape. We have had a great year with card sales in 2025, sell through for Christmas looks encouraging and I even think the Royal Mail is helping our cause right now. People like cards and as you can read on a paper bag (available from us and other publishers!) Cards Make People Happy and we could all do with happiness going into 2026.” Above: The Cardmitments’-instigated Key Challenges: “To me it’s the paper bag initiative, driven by Kaye cost of doing business. I think the Thurgood of Sincerely Yours has been a great way of putting feelgood increase in Minimum Wage and into card buying. general inflationary pressures weigh heavily on the sector and being successful, whether that be designing and publishing them or being an independent retailer is hard with high costs and loads of uncertainty abounding. If we managed our business the way the government recently managed
the Budget we would deservedly be going out of business. None of these adverse headwinds seem to be improving but we seem to be a remarkably resilient industry that is always out there fighting, whether that be with new designs, concepts or initiatives designed to combat the incompetence of our political leaders.” Above: Not quite galloping on a magic stallion, but David Byk gave it his all at the Trot On: “My magic horse would Canton Fair in 2025. have wings and breathe fire, being more like a mythical Chinese dragon flying round the place and blowing fire at people, which is my own particular way of getting everything done, plus a great way of getting around the place and being ready for big events such as Spring Fair! My new fully charged horse might provide some challenges for my HR manager but perhaps she can borrow it at weekends to sort out any issues.” PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE 27
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VIEWPOINTS Rosie Tate, director of Cath Tate Cards
Above: The recent Royal Mail adverts and social media activity echoes the joy of sending and receiving cards… more please! Above right: Rosie Tate.
Opportunities for 2026: “The good news is that it seems that greeting cards are still something people love, old and the young. The real-life authenticity of greeting cards is something that digital communication can’t replace. We’ve been able to send a WhatsApp birthday/Christmas/Mother’s Day message as a possible replacement for a card for many years now, but we still love to send a card. The recent Royal Mail Christmas adverts celebrating card sending are testament to that. I personally have loved
Sarah-Jane Porter, global design and licensing director of Moonpig Opportunities for 2026: “Strengthening the core mission of connecting people through relevancy and representation is a key opportunity for 2026. By better understanding evolving consumer needs and how the industry can meet them, we can Above: Sarah-Jane Porter. Below: The GCA’s actions to curb the continue to champion the greeting card copies on Temu is getting results. joy of sending cards and deepen human connection. Equally important is engaging the next generation. Initiatives like Card Club, which encourages children to write and create, help nurture future fans of the sector and support long-term demand.” Key Challenges: “A big challenge facing the industry has been intellectual property infringement, particularly from platforms like Temu that sells imitation card designs at extremely low prices. The GCA’s collaboration with Temu to address and curb these infringements has been hugely valuable in protecting creators and safeguarding the integrity of the sector.” Trot On: “Let 2026 be the year of the magical postal horse - delivering a postal service that is faster, more reliable, and more affordable for everyone.”
working with the card senders of the future on the GCA Card Club initiative. The importance of sending a heartfelt hand-written message doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere!” Key Challenges: “One of the key challenges for the greeting card market for 2026, is the same thing the whole country is facing, stagnant growth. The rise in Minimum Wage and NI have been challenging for retailers and if it’s challenging for retailers then it’s challenging for us! Shoplifting has also become a really big problem for retailers in 2025. We’d like it to look up for retailers in 2026 and it would be good to see a bit more bounce in people’s financial step.” Trot On: “Talking about the economy again (yawn!) I’d like the magic economy horse to start trotting or even cantering a bit more in 2026 and to not keep stopping to eat the grass!”
Fiona Pitt, head of commercial for Hallmark Opportunities for 2026: “Engaging the next generation in the greeting card revolution. As a mother of young adults, I’m witnessing a powerful trend: this generation values the emotional impact of a physical card far more than a fleeting digital message. They crave something tangible; something that feels personal and lasting. This is our chance to capture the hearts of young people and ignite a renewed passion for cards. By tapping into their desire for authenticity and meaningful connection, we can ensure the tradition of card-giving Above: Fiona Pitt. Below: Hallmark recently teamed up thrives for generations to come.” with mental health charity Young Key Challenges: “A key challenge to the Minds and M&S for a workshop on celebrating the power of words. greeting card industry is that many independent shops are operating on razor-thin or negative margins, squeezed by declining consumer demand and rising operating costs. Many are putting tighter controls around stock management, increasing promotional activity to maintain customers and looking at different ways to engage with their community.” Trot On: “I’m ready to charge into the Year of the Horse with energy and enthusiasm, helping retailers showcase their unique flair through greeting cards that delight and engage shoppers both in-store and at the fixture. Like the horse, independent shops are free-spirited, adventurous, hardworking, and full of vitality. Our mission? To help them stay resilient, harness that momentum, and achieve the success they truly deserve in 2026!”
PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE 29
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S E R V E Y O U R S H E LV E S S O M E T H I N G N E W F O R S P R I N G 2 02 6 We’ve been busy cooking up something special with fresh foil-finished collections, standout new designs and joyful updates across our bestselling ranges. With over 125 new designs added to our product menu, there’s plenty of fresh choice for your customer’s to enjoy. Get the full flavour online and meet the new menu in person at the spring trade shows. wholesale.raspberryblossom.com
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18/12/2025 15:17 18/12/2025 17:08
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PG’S 35TH ANNIVERSARY
35 YEARS OF PG
Interest rates were running at 15% and we had no money to speak of, but thanks to the kindness of our former boss, Malcolm Pearce, a bit of support from family and Jeff Bottomley of Kingsley Cards commissioning us to produce a supplement, we signed on the dotted line. We had previously been working for the London-based publishing subsidiary of Bath based Johnsons, the largest family-owned newspaper wholesaler in the UK at the time. It is hard for younger readers to appreciate how massive the newspaper industry was then, and as well as supplying most of the West Country and many other regions with their newspapers, Johnsons also had a retail chain and various other interests. The owner and flamboyant entrepreneur, Malcolm Pearce was a bit of a wannabe publishing mogul, hence him launching his own trade magazine to serve his customers, the newsagents or CTNs
Above: Jakki Brown and Warren Lomax soon after they had acquired Progressive Greetings. Right: The second PG under Max Publishing ownership had Athena on the front cover, promoting its new licensed Viz range.
(Confectioner Tobacconists and Newsagent). It was called Progressive Newsagent. In those distant days, newsagents had a monopoly on selling newspapers. You could not buy them in a supermarket or anywhere else for that matter, and so they had a considerable presence in UK retailing. There must have been around 30,000 of them in those days as it was before the days where every supermarket had a ‘minimart’ on nearly every street corner and garage forecourt.
1991 was an odd year. After the yuppified boom of the late eighties’ Thatcher era, Britain was well and truly mired in recession again. Retail spending was under pressure, with a delayed hangover from Chancellor of Exchequer, Nigel Lawson’s overheating of the economy in the previous years. Companies were pulling their horns in, the banks had stopped lending and there was a general feeling of doom and gloom in the air. It was into this landscape that we (Jakki Brown and Warren Lomax) as two optimistic and somewhat naïve publishing executives decided it would be a good idea to stage a MBO of Progressive Greetings. To mark the milestone, we share the PG story and some of the protagonists and happenings of the last three and a half decades.
Nigel Wilcock, now sales agent, but formerly of Paper Rose, The Art Group and Macsel
Above: Nigel Wilcock.
Wow 35 years and going stronger than ever! It is hard to believe and reflect on the changes that our amazing industry has witnessed during this time. Publishers, wholesalers and retailers are in some cases now just a memory and some continue to develop and grow while many new ones have arrived on the scene. Fabulous product and great innovation thankfully continue to drive everything. Jakki and Warren have created, nurtured and grown not only Progressive Greetings magazine
that we all still cannot wait to read, but have developed the best trade show in PG Live, industry awards in The Henries and The Retas, sister magazines across all manner of consumer sectors and have supported countless businesses and people along the way, both individually and through their work with the GCA. Neither seem to have changed at all in their determination to help everyone. Whenever Warren and I talk (after putting our two football teams to rights!) we always go back to our first meeting when he explained his vision for the then brand new magazine and we tried to poach him to join the company that I worked for back then. Thank you Jakki and Warren, here’s to the next 35 years! PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE 31
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AN INDUSTRY LEGEND When we launched Progressive Greetings all those years ago, there was one person in particular who inspired and mentored us. Even back in 1991 he was the dominant player in wholesale publishing having established his eponymously named company in 1978. This was Simon Elvin or 'Saint Simon’ as we refer to him. Simon’s company was at the forefront of the emerging wholesale publishing industry that made up over half of the market in the 1980s and early 1990s before the supermarkets really cottoned onto cards. To this day Simon Elvin is still the dominant force in the admittedly much smaller wholesale sector of the market. Although the wholesale market has declined over the years, Simon Elvin still is the brand
that everyone buys into. Next February Simon will celebrate his 85th birthday, but he is still as passionate about design and the industry as he ever was. He still comes into the office every day and passes every single design for press. When we first started, the advice he proffered has stuck with us to this day: “Do all the little things right even though sometimes you don’t know why you are doing them, but somehow they all come together”. Simon is the only person in the industry to have been awarded two Henries Honorary Achievement awards for his contribution to our greeting card industry and rightly so. The epithet ‘legend’ is banded about too freely these days, but with regard to Simon it is truly appropriate.
spot and the more it grew, the more we enjoyed working on it. Step forward to 1990 and with recession looming, the Johnsons’ board recognised the need to concentrate on the business’ core activity of newspaper wholesaling and so set about divesting some of the fringe activities,
Above: Simon Elvin receiving one of the many Henries awards he and his publishing brand has received over the years.
of which publishing was one. Emboldened by this, we approached Malcolm to ask if we could buy Progressive Greetings as we could see the potential of a standalone monthly greeting card trade magazine. Being a great believer in young entrepreneurs, Malcolm was very fair and encouraging. For the princely
IF AT FiRST YOU DON’T SUCCEED Above: Among the biggest card industry changes over the last 35 years is how supermarkets, including Waitrose have embraced stocking greeting cards.
And because of the frequency of visits that the UK public made to newsagents, greeting cards were a great high margin additional product to add the core of news, sweeties and fags. While there were specialist card shops, they were still in their infancy. Most of the cards stocked by the CTN owners were bought from a local greeting card wholesaler - and there were over 200 of these dotted around the company. Wholesale greeting cards back then accounted for 52% of the volume of cards sold back, with the market leader being Simon Elvin. So, it made sense for us to introduce a monthly greeting card supplement to the weekly Progressive Newsagent magazine. Extending the brand, we called this Progressive Greetings. It was a pretty primitive publication in all honesty and really just covered the newsagency and wholesale side of the market, but it seemed to hit the
32 PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE
Paul Taylor can rightly be considered as one of the key players in our greeting card industry today and his influence over the last 35 years has been considerable. Paul heads up the family group which owns, not only the Cardzone chain of specialist retail stores, but also the iconic Clintons brand of specialist card shops. Add to that the UK’s leading gift packaging supplier, Glick, one of the largest overseas volume suppliers of Above: Paul Taylor (centre) with his wife paper goods in Polytint, and not forgetting major Chris and industry stalwart John Charlton at The Henries 2017. wholesale publisher in Simon Elvin. The family-owned Below left: Paul and son James Taylor business also entered into a joint venture with Mark are driving the new look for Clintons, the first of which opened at Newcastle’s and Leona Janson-Smith which boosted Postmark’s Metrocentre last June. footprint into a significant retail player in the market. To say Paul has got his fingers in a number of pies, would be an understatement. How he successfully juggles all of these diverse interests defies belief. But Paul’s rise to this position has not been rapid. After starting with one shop called Pillarbox Cards in the 1990’s he became a director in a rapidly expanding private equity-backed specialist card chain called the Greetings Store Group that was sold to Clintons before it reached its optimum price. Paul, having not made the financial return he had hoped for, was the tied to a non-compete clause for the next few years prohibiting him starting again. But as soon as this came to an end, he expanded from his Nottingham base to slowly and steadily to build Cardzone into a regional and then national chain. The opportunity to acquire the iconic, but faded Clintons chain from the Weiss family was too much of a temptation to resist. By his own admission this is his biggest challenge yet, but if anyone can turn it around, Paul and his son James can.
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sum of £48,000 he sold PG to us and generously allowed us to pay him back £1,000 a month, interest free for four years. Max Publishing was formed and we went ahead and launched Progressive Greetings as the first Max title, exactly 35 years ago in January 1991. It was not the best of times to start, a recession was in full swing with a house-price crash leading to a lot of negative equity. It was also very hard on small and medium sized businesses, many of whom went to the wall. The economy contracted by 2% and there were 2.5 million people unemployed. Our start was inauspicious. We rented a tiny cupboard of an office, which contained two tatty desks, a second-hand filing cabinet and one static phone. We had no fancy mobiles and not even a computer with all articles written by hand. It is only now looking back at this first issue, we realise how humble PG’s beginnings were. It was only 48 pages, many of the editorial pages were printed in black and white and it did not even have a decent cover. The UK greeting card industry at that time was worth around £500 million, about a third of what it is now. WHSmith and Woolworths were the two market leaders (the former on everyday cards, the latter Below: Andrew Brownsword (far left) with Forever Friends’ creator Deborah Jones (front) and some of the bears.
A DiGiTAL REVOLUTiON? Predictions made five years ago by some, was that by 2025 online print on demand cards would have a 30% market share as in so many consumer market categories. It clearly has not happened. Although greeting card online market leader Moonpig’s recent financials in the half year to October are a real improvement on the previous reporting period when it bore the brunt of its Above: Flowers, gifts and experiences expansion into the ‘experiences’ market, it has not feature alongside cards on the Moonpig platform. yet hit anything near that figure. Pre-tax profits for Below left: The print on demand option the period were £26.6 million but of course we don’t means that Moonpig can be quick respond to popular icons or happenings. know how much of this profit came from greeting cards or what the contribution was from gifts and other products. The shares are still trading 38% below the flotation price at the height of the pandemic. We remember the launch of Moonpig well. It was set up in 2000, just at the collapse of the dot-com bubble by Nick Jenkins, whose nickname at school was ‘Moonpig’. He admitted his naivety when it came to greeting card design and so clinched an arrangement with Paperlink, recognising that its brilliant studio could assist giving the publisher a 10% stake in the then embryonic online business. It was a real slow burn, but by 2005, with this creative support, Moonpig finally turned in a profit. Nick subsequently sold out to the Photobox Group in 2011 in a £120 million cash and shares transaction and Nick for a time became one of the dragons on the BBC TV’s Dragons’ Den series. And with Funky Pigeon selling to Cardfactory recently for a relatively low figure of around £30 million and Thortful still not being the subject of an acquisition, which surely owner founder Andy Pearce had hoped for by now, it is clear that the digital revolution still has a long way to go when it comes to cards. Nevertheless, Moonpig claims to have a 70% share of the digital greeting card market. The estimate is that the market share of online cards sold as opposed to bricks and mortar is still after all these years under 20%. It would appear that despite Moonpig's relative success, many consumers still like trawling the card racks of bricks and mortar retailers.
TiMiNG IS EVERYTHiNG When Progressive Greetings launched in 1991 there was one publishing superstar who was the man of the moment - Andrew Brownsword. His eponymous company over the course of the 1980s had developed artist Deborah Jones’ artwork of two lovable pastel-coloured bears into a sensation known as Forever Friends. The bears had no names, they were androgynous, and appealed to both children and female adults. Andrew, a phenomenal marketeer, maximised their popularity, creating a huge selling plush range, and licensed out the brand onto all manner of
other products, while a retail store opened in Leicester, just selling Forever Friends merchandise. It was claimed that three out of four teenage girls had at least one item of Forever Friends merchandise in their bedroom. In a way it was the forerunner to the success of the likes of Tatty Teddy, Beany Babies and Jellycat. Andrew’s company became so successful that it made the press headlines when company records showed he had taken a salary of £11 million in 1990. In order to stop these revelations, he took the company back into his private hands so he did not need to publish any accounts and reveal the extent of his earnings. And for the first few years of
the 1990s his success was so evident you did not need to see his accounts to know he was doing brilliantly. Then in 1994 he sold the business to Hallmark cards for an estimated £195 million and became chief executive for Hallmark’s business in the UK and Europe and the first Brit, and indeed the only one, to sit on the Hallmark main board in Kansas City. Andrew’s timing was perfect. Forever Friends’ mania had peaked and the next few years saw a gradual decline in the popularity of the brand both on greeting cards and on licensed merchandise. Andrew’s business acumen continues in several guises, including luxury hotels.
PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE 33
THE GLOBAL GREETING CARD GATHERING OF PUBLISHERS, RETAILERS, OVERSEAS DISTRIBUTORS AND SUPPLIERS
SAVE THE DATE
Tuesday 2nd - Wednesday 3rd June 2026 An upbeat vibe, newness galore – and free refreshments, lunch and opening night party, PG Live 2026 is not to be missed!
THE ESSENTIALS When:
Tuesday 2 – Wednesday 3 June
Where: Business Design Centre, Islington, London N1 0QH Times:
9.30am-6pm on 2 June (1st night party ‘til 8pm) 9.30am-4.30pm on 3 June
Tel: +44 (0)7734 111633 www.progressivegreetingslive.com
34_PG January 2026.indd 1
Don’t Miss Out… Book Your Free Tickets Registration is now live at: www.progressivegreetingslive.com Register now and be a part of it! Call us on: (0) 7734 111633 or email: jimb@max-publishing.co.uk Follow us @PGLiveLondon #pglive2025
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PG’S 35TH ANNIVERSARY
THE DON
Left: Don Lewin checking Clintons’ share price many moons ago.
In November 2024 the ‘Godfather’ or the ‘Don’ of the UK greeting card industry, Don Lewin, the founder of Clinton Cards, died age 91. To younger readers, his name and the shops that bore the name of his son, Clintons, may not mean that much, but for the first 20 years of PG’s existence, he and his chain Clinton Cards bestrode the industry like a colossus. The son of a chimney sweep left school at 14 and became a greeting card salesman. In 1968 he opened his first card shop in
worth £140 million and in the early noughties it had expanded to over 1,000 stores. One of Don’s mantras was: “You can’t sell sentiment cheap” and eschewed selling value or discounted cards. This ensured high margins for both Clintons and its suppliers. This did leave Clintons exposed when a new aggressive value-based competitor came on the market in the form of Card Factory. The Don’s response was confused. He bought another value chain Birthdays which could have acted as protection against Card Factory, but then pushed its prices up, negating the reason for buying it. And when the recession of 2008-2011 hit, it was ill-equipped to cope with the new retail environment. In 2011 the business was put into administration with its number one supplier, UKG taking over the reins and subsequently the former owners of holding company AG, the Weiss brothers took over ownership. But neither could stem the decline with the Clinton chain shrunk to a hard core of around 200 stores. Paul Taylor of Cardzone, who acquired the rump chain a couple of years ago, freely admits he has had a tough job on his hands turning Clintons’ fortunes around. But no one can deny the huge influence Don Lewin had on the history of the UK greeting card industry.
Below: Clintons acquired the Birthdays chain, that was owned by Ron Wood (centre). Seen here with Man U legends Alex Fergusson and Bryan Robertson. Below right: Dominque Schurman, who headed up Clintons under the AG/Schurman Retail Group ownership, unveiling the new look for Clintons in 2012.
on Christmas cards), but an indication of how fragmented the market was, their combined market share was only 12%. There was no brokerage, publishers’ new launches were few and far between and nothing like today’s plethora of greeting card companies. Below: The winners of The Henries 2025 on stage with the PG team at the front with host Andrew Ryan.
Loughton Essex, and over the next 20 years he steadily expanded Clinton Cards to 87 stores. In 1988 he floated Clintons as a plc. raising £20 million in the process and this led to astonishing growth in the 1990s with several smaller chains being acquired during that period. Clintons snapped up all the best positions in the high street, known for paying top whack in the major shopping centres. It went full hog to develop Spring Seasons, with 40’+ displays of Valentine’s and Mother’s Day cards. Plus, it pioneered new card sending events such as Teacher’s Day, Secretary’s Day and St George’s Day. At its peak Clintons had an estimated 30% market share of the UK greeting card market. At one stage the value of the Lewin family shares was
Sunday trading was still illegal then, and the supermarkets had virtually no cards on sale while online was somewhere you hung your washing! But as it turns out we were very fortunate in our timing. Our two would-be competitors closed, the economy started to pick up and the greeting card industry experienced a
growth spurt that continued, on an uninterrupted upward trajectory right up to the financial crash of 2008. So, developing Progressive Greetings as a brand and a magazine was great fun. We improved the paper stock, invested in design and set about involving ourselves in all aspects of the trade. We made numerous industry friends, many of whom are still close to our hearts to this day. PG’s advertising base grew and as did the readership. In 1996 we were honoured to be asked to take on the running of the UK Greeting Card Association, of which we are still involved as Council members. It was that year that we also launched the UK Greeting Card Awards which we christened as The Henries a year later, named after Sir Henry Cole, the founder of the commercial Christmas card. Then, in 2005 we launched The Retas greeting card retail awards. In 2009 we went one step further and launched Progressive Greetings Live at PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE 35
Introducing
2026 New Designs see us at
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Children’s Pop Up Card
POP UP GREETING CARD
please visit www.alljoydesign.com for more information or email us at info@alljoydesign.com 36_PG January 2026.indd 1
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PG’S 35TH ANNIVERSARY
FACTORY GATES If there was one individual that was responsible for Don Lewin’s Clintons’ empire crashing it was Dean Hoyle, the founder of Card Factory. Younger readers who have seen the ubiquitous presence of the units in over 1,000 locations across the UK, may not realise that the chain started with just one single unit in 1997. The rise was miraculous and by 2009 the company had 500 shops employing over 50,000 people. What was the secret behind Card Factory and Dean Hoyle’s incredible success? Well there had been value-based chains previously, the Bury-based Birthdays chain in particular, but it was Card Factory’s hitherto novel supply chain model that made the difference. By joining forces with Stuart Middleton, the owner of Excelsior Graphics card company, who was skilled in producing low cost value cards, Dean was able to perfect an integrated system where the cards were designed, printed and retailed allowing Card Factory to pocket the whole margin. This meant the cards could be sold at a ridiculously low prices, which made it very attractive to a large percentage of the population and turned on its head Don Lewin’s maxim that you can’t sell sentiment cheap. The financial crisis that started in 2008 further broadened the appeal of Card Factory as austerity started to bite. In 2010 Dean and his wife Janet sold Card Factory to a venture
Above: Dean and Janet Hoyle. Above right: Cardfactory recently opened its 1,100th new store in Cheshunt.
capital company, Charterhouse, for a price estimated to be in excess of £350 million. Dean became non-executive chairman and oversaw the stock market floatation launching Card Factory as a PLC and subsequently achieve the milestone of 1,000 stores. Dean went on to acquire a large stake in The Works chain and as chairman and major financial backer steered his beloved Huddersfield Town football club from the third tier to the Premier League. Cardfactory recently purchased, Funky Pigeon, the online digital card division of WH Smith after struggling for years to make an impact with its own online offering. And it recently issued a profit warning siting pressures on consumers living standards, but it still expects to make around £50 million profit when its full year financials are released in April. Not bad from what was a single card shop 29 years ago.
Right: It was a big deal with MP and cultural minister Richard Caborn (third right) attended Spring Fair in 2001 to meet (left-right) Paul Woodmansterne (Woodmansterne Publications), David Hicks (Really Good and Soul, now sadly departed), Jakki Brown and Warren Lomax (PG), Simon Elvin and Peter Reichwald (Paper House/The Great British Card Company).
London’s Business Design Centre, which has become the only dedicated global greeting card trade exhibition. And In 2017, recognising the changing nature of communication, we launched our thrice weekly digital newsletter, PG Buzz. Of course many of the names that graced PG’s pages in the early years are no longer trading, but as companies we
have ‘grown up with’, such as Emotional Rescue, Paperlink, Danilo, Carte Blance, Paper Rose and Abacus, to name a few
have evolved, so the cardie family has expanded with so many wonderful companies and a retail base to do them justice. Those early discussions about barcodes and price codes have been superceded by sustainability requirements, brokerage considerations and how to reach critical mass in a competitive market, but the ever changing nature means there is always plenty to fill PG’s pages. It has been and is still fabulous and enjoyable to be a part of the greeting card community, learning and being inspired by those who make the cardie world rock.
Miles Robinson, co-owner of House of Cards 35 years is a long time! The biggest change in our industry in the last three and a half decades has probably been digital print and the digitisation of the world in general. The number of greeting card publishers has increased markedly while cello wrapping has gone full circle. As a retailer starting around the same time as Max Publishing, we didn’t even accept credit cards let alone Amex, while now the ratio is 85/15 card to cash. The internet is an other obvious change in the route to market with phones now being the most prevalent tool to purchase with. Business rates are completely out of all proportion when we think back to what they were and overheads in general are now a much higher percentage. However, rents have not increased by the same percentages (otherwise there would be no retailers left!) but this has only
partially helped the aforementioned. I would say innovation in greeting card design, the board and finishes have also evolved in the UK over the years, especially when compared to other card producing nations. The depth of product choice and morphing into gifts has been marked, especially over the last 10/15 years. And I guess we all do more with less; we have less staff, less Above: Miles Robinson (left) with PG’s Jakki Brown (centre) and Ashley hours but we now have McCraken, then WHS buyer, now buyer of copious amounts of technology National Trust, over 30 years ago judging Gift of the Year. to help us manage this. PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE 37
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COMiNG OF AGE
“Someone asked me recently what it’s like running your own business. I likened it to being on a rollercoaster that you can’t get off – it’s thrilling, scary and relentless!” exclaimed Mark Janson-Smith, who shares the ride of running the Postmark group of 15 stores with his wife Leona and loyal team. As the retailer celebrates its 21st birthday, PG toasts its success and its plans for the coming year.
“It’s definitely been a challenging year. We’re trading up, but there have certainly been ups and downs. Thankfully more ups than downs,” summed up Mark JansonSmith, who founded the greeting cards and
stationery business 21 years ago, which has now spawned 15 stores in London and Glasgow. Postmark punches above its weight, its number of stores belies the influence it
Big ‘hops’ for Lil Wabbit As part of its commitment to the greeting card industry, Postmark has been a sponsor of The Henries’ Lynn Tait Most Promising Young Designer award for the last five years. “It is so important to celebrate and support our talented designers and publishers,” believes Mark. Wanting to further leverage its commitment, this month marks the inaugural “unofficial part of the prize,” when the winner of the 2025 award, Georgi Doig, founder of Lil Wabbit is given pride of place in all Postmark stores, with a selection of the publisher’s cards featured in a counter-top display complete with explanatory header. Above right: (right) Leona Janson-Smith, who runs Postmark alongside her husband Mark presenting The Henries 2025 The Lynn Tait Most Promising Young Designer award, which Postmark sponsors, to Georgi Doig, founder of Lil Wabbit. Right: The explanatory PoS that features at the top of the special display of the Lil Wabbit cards in Postmark stores from this month as part of the retailer’s support of The Henries.
38 PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE
Above left: Mark Janson-Smith and the retailer’s buyer Shannon Fisher in Postmark’s London HQ. Above: Postmark’s store in London Bridge station includes an animated screen in the window which changes regularly.
wields. It is rightfully held up high as a leader for its curated product selection as well as the retailing environment in which they are presented, including in some highprofile station locations. Postmark has set its bar high, and having proven himself as a marathon man, Mark and his team (notably including Shannon Fisher, the retailer’s buyer who also has a marathon under her belt) are all up for going the distance. The last year alone has seen new store openings for Postmark in
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Battersea’s Northcote Road as well as in Canary Wharf, while its London Bridge store received a revamp. Added to this have been some ‘first to market’ product launches, notably the Poodle & Blonde card range from Pigment and Pressed & Posted letterpress collection from Stormy Knight (see right).
Stormy Knight’s pressing Postmark task Stormy Knight’s founder Sarah Jackson completed a pressing engagement last October – making good on her promise to Postmark co-owner Mark JansonSmith to come up with her first letterpress greeting card collection. An idea borne out of a chat in the pub after last year’s Dragons’ Speed Dating event centering around their shared love of letterpress, culminated in the inaugural 18 designs in the Pressed & Posted collection debuting in Postmark’s stores last October in advance of its general expanded launch this month. “I told Mark that I'd always wanted to launch a collection as my background is in silk-screen printing and I love the mechanical processes and colour theory that you apply to these crafts. We were both clear that we wanted the cards to be bright, colourful and bold – and fun. He egged me on and said that I should get on and do it!” The initial collection of 18 designs across birthdays and some occasions launched in Postmark with Mark’s favourite, a Two Hearts anniversary card selling out in most stores in the first week, firmly cementing that he knows what his customers will like. “I love the range,” Mark said. “It was right up there as a top seller for us right from the off.” Above: Stormy Knight’s Sarah Jackson with Mark Janson-Smith next to the Pressed & Posted letter range in Postmark’s London Bridge store.
As Mark explained, these launches are “in keeping with our mission to bring our customers products something new and different” with two more ‘first to market’ launches in the pipeline from Pigment. Taking this a stage further, this month marks the launch of the retailer’s first two exclusive greeting card ranges, developed in conjunction with In Real Life. Above: One of two exclusive ranges Postmark has collaborated on with In Real Life. Right: Postmark opened a store in London’s prestigious Canary Wharf last November. Far right: Some of Postmark’s own brand notebooks with a soft vegan leather cover. Below: Aoife Janson-Smith, Mark and Leona’s daughter was tasked with selecting the company to spend the retailer’s Golden Ticket at PG Live. She picked Ross J Designs, which has proved to be a best seller for Postmark.
Meanwhile, building on Postmark’s stationery prowess, which now represents 50% of its sales, following on from debuting a range of Korean stickers in the UK, Postmark has developed and launched a sizeable collection of own brand notebooks, all in pursuit of that ‘point of difference’ mission. So, while there have been lots of ups for the Postmark clan, top of the lists of ‘downs’ has to be shoplifting. “In total I have been in retailing for 30 years and shoplifting is 10 times worse than ever before.
Jellycat products have been an obvious target, leading us to pull the brand from some stores to mitigate against theft, but it is a sad indictment of what things have come to,” said an untypically demoralised Mark. “In common with so many other retailers, we have lost tens of thousands of £pounds in the last year alone through shoplifting. There is no real deterrent, and we do not want to put our team members at risk. It is rather depressing, but thankfully the plus points of retailing outweigh the negatives,” added Mark. With a stunning new store to be unveiled in London’s Waterloo Station later this month, complete with feature railway arches, Postmark is on track for a great start to 2026. PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE 39
Introducing Our New 2026 Everyday Collection
Discover over 550 brand-new designs across greeting cards, stationer y, wrap and gifts.
See the full Spring Summer Ever yday 2026 collection at Top Drawer, 11-13th Januar y. Visit us at Stand K81 0115 850 7490 | sales@theartfile.com | theartfiletrade.com
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SHOPPiNG FOR JOY
The greeting card industry’s soul sank 12 months ago, when John Lewis’ Shop Live Look report dealt a blow by declaring “Christmas cards are lost in the post” in its Shop-Live-LookReport, including cards in its list of ‘Products We Left Behind’. However, the retail group’s latest edition of its annual report makes for much more uplifting reading as far as the greeting card sector is concerned, reinforcing how entrenched they are both in everyday and seasonal gift gifting while the consumer’s show of faith extends to wrappings. And these are not the only products to have endured while many others have fallen by the wayside in consumer purchasing habits. As Peter Ruis, group md of the John Lewis group wrote in the foreword of the 2025 Shop Live Look which was revealed a few weeks ago: “When I first joined The Partnership 20 years ago, I would have struggled to believe that Bridget Jones – and her big pants – would still be on our cinema screens, that an advent calendar would be one of our most successful product launches of all time, that we’d sell more sexual wellness products than hot water bottles or that Quality Street tins would be our most Above: John Lewis MD Peter Ruis picked out advents in his welcome address. Right: Bricks & mortar still plays an important role in consumer purchasing decisions.
Confirming that Britain shopped for joy in 2025, the 12th annual John Lewis’ Shop Live Look report positively featured greeting cards, giftwrap and sustainability – along with sex toys! And the department store group’s md Peter Ruis even pulled out advent calendars in his welcome address in the much-awaited publication that reveals the consumer behaviours, cultural shifts and surprising trends that defined the last year. PG flicks through the pages and pulls out some of the highlights.
Top JL’s 12th annual Shop Live Look report was released a few weeks ago. Above: John Lewis is often viewed as a bellwether to general retail.
popular Christmas bauble. But that is the joy of working for John Lewis – every day is a school day.” From the “nowstalgia” revival of 90s music, fashion and culture to the long hot summer and boom in sexual wellness, John Lewis
tracked a national obsession with feeling good, with greeting cards playing into that vibe, spreading happiness in an envelope. The report highlighted instant gratification gifting where John Lewis shoppers are using the Uber Eats trial partnerships in Leeds and Stratford to get their fix of emergency retail, extending the service beyond fast food and groceries. The most popular category is gifting, but some 22% of JL orders include a card or wrapping paper.
MORE iN STORE TREATS There was good bricks-and-mortar news in the Report too as 78% of customers buying substantial items went to the physical stores for at least part of the research, and 48% of the 1,100 people surveyed cited the experience of simply “wandering around” as the main attraction for visiting, proving that in-store discovery is essential to the modern shopping journey, while 27% like to do both browsing and buying in-store. The department store group is following the research by investing £800million in revamps of its 36 sites to make shopping more of an experience, including opening the John Lewis Lounge where members can put their feet up and enjoy a glass of fizz, as well as launching the first Gifting Emporium at Bluewater “ensuring as many of our stores as possible remain thrilling places to visit” according to the MD.
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At Bell y Button Designs it ’s all about original design and a fant astic herit age in greeting c ards. We are b ack with our brand new greeting c ard collection, fe atur ing bold, contemporar y p atter ns and a r ich, vibrant p alette. Per fect for adding a pop of colour as we step into spr ing.
@bellybuttondesigns w w w. b e l l y b u t t o n . c a r d s
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Right: The Teddy Bear Ladies from BBC’s The Repair Shop are involved in JL’s Teddy Bear Repair Service. Below: Greeting cards and wrappings feature in Instant Gratification Gifting mentions in the Report.
Confirming the views of other retailers, the JL report states that Christmas trade began earlier in 2025, with customers starting their buying in September. To perpetuate this, the highlyanticipated John Lewis festive advert debuted on 4 November, only the second time in its 18 year history that it aired that early. “As soon as the summer holidays ended, customers wanted to banish the autumn blues, forget the gloomy news, and embrace the sparkle and joy of Christmas, even in September,” said JL’s head of Christmas, Lisa Cherry. “When we launched in stores, our online Christmas Shop sales were already up 145%.” By the end of October sales of wrapping paper from JL were already up 9% on the previous year, and by the last week of September, its 10ft pre-lit Christmas tree had already sold out. The company revealed that a lot of this is driven by younger consumers, who seem to enjoy all things autumnal and festive. Providing a fillip to the whole sector, JL issued a statement to the media in early December to share that its sales of boxed Christmas cards were up by 13.5% year on year, putting paid to its ‘products we left behind’ reference in its 2024 Shop Live Look Report. In a survey of over 1,000 JL customers, 43% say they feel either slightly or very positive about the change of the season from summer into autumn, with this figure jumping to 72% for those aged below 29. And the love affair with advent calendars continues – testament to which the 2025 JL beauty version became the fastest-selling nontech product in the history of JohnLewis.com. More money was taken in one day from this item than any other since the website was
SUSTAiNABiLiTY’S STAYiNG POWER With sustainability a huge part of the greeting card industry, the ‘love it don’t ditch it’ vibe resonates as a survey of over 1,000 JL shoppers confirmed they value furniture that lasts and fashions that endure, with over a third regularly wearing clothing that’s more than 20 years old. The trend is particularly strong among Gen Z, as 29% of those aged 18 to 28 said they often wear a coat, dress, jumper or shirt more than three decades old – made before they were even born. This focus on durability explains the success of the new repair service, in partnership with Johnsons, expanded to all JL stores in April 2025, which had mended over 2,300 items by September 2025, up 435% from last year, and this extends to cuddly toys too as John Lewis launched its Teddy Bear Repair Service in September. Only 38% said they would replace a ripped or worn-out item of clothing, as 46% said they would patch it up themselves, which might explain why searches of sewing machines were up 50% on last year, while one in eight customers said they would get it professionally mended. Meanwhile, pre-loved items continue to gain ground, with 80% of Gen Z John Lewis shoppers buying second-hand fashion and the store’s pre-owned accessories partnership saw sales soar by 137%, including the sale of a £11,480 Hermès Birkin bag. launched at the start of this century, with the exception of Apple product launches. Now in its sixth year, the 2025 version was a bit more upmarket than the traditional versions with a festive picture behind each door, or even the chocolate favourites. When it launched in 2019, it cost £150 for £255 worth of products – the equivalent of a 70% bonus. This year’s version retailed at £235 with over £1,000 worth of items behind the windows – the equivalent of 325% of free goodies. Plus, a handful of calendars hid extra star prizes, including a £1,000 gift card, a Dr Hauschka 120-minute facial and a 5-star overnight stay for two. As part of the wellness trend the report highlights that there’s a surprising new staple for the JL customer. Sales of sex toys have shot up 59% compared to 2024, driven by the popularity of the Coco de Mer Pleasure No.6 The
Intimate Wand, described by one satisfied customer as “the Ferrari of sex toys”, and the Lelo Sona 2, which has nearly sold out. Apparently, such items are no longer sold as something to be hidden away, but as a device that “can relieve stress, improve sleep, boost your mood, and even strengthen your immune system” – John Lewis now offers double the amount of sexual wellness products as hot water bottles and covers! Could this signal JL relaxing its views as what is acceptable to be featured on the greeting cards it stocks?! PG looks forward to the climax.
Above: One of JL’s charity Christmas boxes. Right: JL’s sales of sex toys shot up in 2025!
PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE 43
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FACE TO FACE: MOLESKINE
PUTTiNG PEN TO PAPER Moleskine’s new creative flagship store at Battersea Power Station is a blueprint of how the leading stationery brand plans to approach retailing in the future; with the physical experience at the heart of the store. PG caught up with Christophe Archaimbault, ceo of Moleskine, at the official opening where he spoke about the future of retail and the brand’s mission to inspire creativity in the modern world. Left: The new creative flagship store at Battersea Power Station.
When the doors opened to Moleskine’s creative flagship at London’s Battersea Power Station recently, it was clear that the company was up for doing things differently. For Christophe Archaimbault, who became ceo of Moleskine in March last year, the store is the clearest expression yet of what the brand stands for. “This new concept store is a real shift in the way we do retail,” Christophe told PG. “Moleskine is a notebook, yes, but what actually matters most is what you put in it. What you use it for. We want to give people the space to unleash their creativity.” Right: Christophe Archaimbault with PG writer, Michelle Urquhart. Below: Central to the new Battersea store is a workshop table that allows visitors to sit and write, draw, paint or doodle.
It takes only a few steps inside the Battersea store to understand what he means. A central workshop table - evocative of an art atelier or a writer’s desk - invites people to sit and sketch, paint, draw, write, read and exchange inspiration and ideas in a creative way. Stocked with notebooks, pencils, pens and even watercolours, it encourages passers-by to pause, sketch, jot or experiment. “The design was inspired by the Moleskine invitation to ‘put pen to paper’,” Christophe explains. “We’ve put the creative experience at the centre. The table is there for people to sketch, paint, draw, write, read and get inspired.” The walls continue the theme, with panels made of open notebooks where visitors are encouraged to leave a mark of their own. The result is a store that functions as a gallery of ever-evolving creativity. “Of course we want to sell products,” Christophe says with a smile, “but that almost feels secondary to the design of this space.” For Christophe, Battersea is more than a retail redesign: it is a template for the future of the brand’s physical presence. “This flagship represents the best
MOLESKiNE X BLACKPINK Moleskine has recently teamed up with global K-pop powerhouse BLACKPINK for a limitededition collection that celebrates creativity, individuality, and self-discovery. The Moleskine x BLACKPINK blends Moleskine’s timeless craftsmanship with BLACKPINK’s bold aesthetic, encouraging fans to explore every side of themselves, whether they’re writing, sketching, or dreaming big. “This was a really exciting collaboration for us to work on,” says Christophe. “BLACKPINK approached us wanting to do a collaboration and we worked closely together on the content for the Life Planner, which is a guided journal to help you stay mindful, inspired and in tune with your goals.” Below: K-pop sensation, BLACKPINK approached Moleskine to do a collaboration.
of Moleskine and will be a blueprint for how we want to do retail,” he says. “It has the right audience, the right location, and the right product.” But customers won’t just browse here, they’ll participate, with regular drop-in workshops TPROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE
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Far left: The walls of the store are panels made of open notebooks where visitors are encouraged to leave a mark of their own. Left: Detour is Moleskine Foundation’s travelling exhibition of decorated notebooks; this year held in Japan.
covering all creative arts, from drawing to calligraphy to journalling. “We want to break down the barriers for people to participate in creative workshops so will only charge a nominal fee, maybe a couple of £pounds,” he explains. “We want to create a place of inspiration for the community where people can discover tools that spark imagination, support creative thinking, and unleash their dreams.” This philosophy also underpinned one of the brand’s most visible experiments of the past year: the Brain Gym installation during London Design Week last September. The pop-up brought together workshops, an interactive studio and a café where visitors were invited to put pen to paper while they waited for their coffee. “It was a test of this experiential concept for us,” says Christophe. “Would people embrace it? Well, they absolutely did. The workshops were full and the café was buzzing.” The Shoreditch success has spurred a revival of the Moleskine Café model. After nearly a decade without them, a new café opened in autumn in Hong Kong in the Tai Kwun district, and more are planned worldwide. “Normally when you wait for your coffee you sit and scroll on your phone,” Christophe says. “At our cafes we invite people to get creative with pen and paper.” Christophe only stepped into the CEO role in March, but he has long felt a personal connection to the brand. “Moleskine is a brand I am very familiar with from my student days,” he says. “It’s been a genuine pleasure to work with something so iconic.” There are a number of challenges, however. The post-Covid retail landscape is tougher, with fewer retailers and rising pressures on those that remain. For a brand built on the tactile appeal of opening a new notebook, fewer physical browsing opportunities pose a clear risk. “If there are fewer retailers, there are fewer opportunities to get in front of customers,” comments Christophe
But he’s optimistic. Demand for the brand continues to grow, and retail stockists share the company’s creative mission. “We’re not just selling notebooks, we’re selling a feeling,” he explains. “If we focus on the endless possibilities a notebook offers - how it can make you feel, how it can make you think we’ll deliver the results.” Among the many high points of his first year, one project stands out: Detour, Moleskine Foundation’s travelling exhibition of decorated notebooks by renowned international creatives. Detour offers an intimate look at artists’ personal processes, revealed through the pages of their own notebooks. “The first Detour was in 2006,” Christophe says. “Every year it visits a different city and Below: Combining coffee and creativity is the idea behind the relaunch of the Moleskine Café.
invites visitors to explore each creator’s process as it unfolds.” This year Detour was in Japan, first at the Italy Pavilion at Expo 2025 in Osaka, where 250,000 visitors were welcomed over the three weeks. After that, it travelled to Tokyo for two weeks where there were three times as many people visiting. Next year marks Detour’s 20th anniversary, and Christophe hints at global celebrations culminating in a grand finale in Milan. “We have very exciting plans,” he says. “It will be a big moment for the brand.” Moleskine’s commitment to craftsmanship extends to sustainability. The company has set science-based targets, including a 42% reduction in Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 2030. All paper has been FSC-certified since 2008, and the company is already compliant with the EU deforestation regulations. Inclusivity is also central to the culture. More than half of the brand’s top and middle management roles are held by women, and recruitment intentionally welcomes diverse nationalities, backgrounds, and languages. As co-founder Maria Sebregondi often says: “Every Moleskine notebook is a book yet to be written.” Christophe adds: “Our notebooks are treasured and kept, but when the time comes, the pages can be recycled. We’re even working on making the cover recyclable in the future.” Beyond the Detour anniversary, 2026 promises new collaborations, including an upcoming project with a luxury Japanese fashion brand. More concept stores, more cafés and more immersive creative environments are on the horizon. “It’s a very exciting time to be at Moleskine,” Christophe says. “There’s so much more in the pipeline. As they say: watch this space.”
A MARRiAGE OF ANALOGUE AND DiGiTAL Despite Moleskine’s roots in analogue culture, the company has embraced technology, not as a replacement for handwriting, but as a complement to it. In 2022 Moleskine relaunched its Smart Writing System, which merges pen-and-paper notetaking with digital capture through a Smart Pen and Ncoded notebook pages. “It’s a bridge between analogue and digital,” Christophe says. “There are times when you want to use your laptop, and times when you want to go analogue. They can coexist.” Above: The Smart Writing Systems allows users to write in a notebook which can be captured on digital.
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IN CONVERSATION WITH… BELLY BUTTON’S RACHEL HARE
THE RENAiSSANCE ERA Having dedicated much of the last two years to launching and establishing its design-led giftware collections, this year Belly Button Designs is embracing and investing in what the company’s founder and creative maestro, Rachel Hare describes as its “greeting card renaissance.” PG travelled to the publisher’s Manchester HQ to meet up with Rachel to find out more. Left: Some of the eye-catching products in Belly Button Designs’ Mabel collection which spans greeting cards, gifts and homewares.
The Renaissance period of the 14th-17th centuries was a transformative European era of rebirth, bridging the Middle Ages and modernity, marked by a rediscovery of classical Greek and Roman culture, explosive growth in arts (think Da Vinci and Michelangelo), science (Copernicus, Galileo), literature (Dante, Shakespeare), and exploration, championing humanism, individualism, and worldly achievement, starting in Italy (notably Florence) and spreading across Europe. Having named her company after her artist retreat to Delphi, which is known as the belly button of the Ancient World, now 30 years on Rachel Hare is once again, tapping back into the history of art to describe the publisher’s passion and commitment to greeting cards in the coming year as something of a “renaissance”, 48 PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE
Above: Rachel Hare, founder and creative maestro of Belly Button Designs with some of the hand-finished cards from its Signature collection, which also extends to some large luxe designs for special captions. Below: The latest Elle greeting card collection sees an embrace of cottagecore patterning and Rachel’s colour palette special touch. Below right: The Olive collection has proved hugely popular. Commercial and design-led.
though it will be contemporary design with a commercial heartbeat that is the order of the day for the Manchester-based business. This month alone marks the official launch of Signature, a range of hand-finished greeting cards; Mabel, which is an embossed bold floral collection and a reinvented Elle line with patterned cottagecore designs in a contemporary colour palette, and there are lots more where these came from. As Rachel confessed: “It was at PG Live last year that I felt that I wanted to throw everything I had into designing greeting cards, so that is what I have done. It really does feel like a renaissance as it was where we started after all, and I have loved it!” Rachel explains that much of her time the last two years has been taken up with the company’s expansion into gifts and homewares. This has represented considerable investment and learnings, but has also sparked plenty of new ideas, some feeding over into its resultant greeting card and giftwrap collections.
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IN CONVERSATION WITH… BELLY BUTTON’S RACHEL HARE
Shop window into consumer tastes
Above: A Christmas 2026 keepsake in the Birdie collection.
“Our giftware sales have doubled over the last year, which I am obviously happy about!” reveals Rachel. “And while there is a crossover into greeting cards, there are obvious differences between gifting and cards that need to be taken into account when designing,” Rachel adds. Her renewed delve back into greeting cards was marked with the Signature collection, which was teased last summer in readiness for the full-blown launch this month. The premium Signature collection represents something of a sparkling return to the company’s roots, and has seen Rachel having to eat her own words! “Signature is a turning point for me as it is a return to hand-finished cards, something I said I would never do,” admits Rachel. “But I listened to feedback from customers and agents and wanting to support our indie customers, I took Belly Button back to where it started,” she added. The extensive Mabel collection is very much Belly Button heartland, the embossed boldly designed square cards exuding Above right: Belly Button Designs products continue to ‘sock it’ to the buying public. Below: Some of the greeting cards in the new Mabel range. Below right: A Christmas 2026 keepsake in the Birdie collection.
Providing invaluable feedback to consumer as having placed an advert in one of its tastes have been Belly Button Designs two shop windows for a ‘head of retail’ to front card and gift shops, located in its retail expansion, it was spotted by Suzie Manchester’s Heaton Moor and West King, whose previous experience includes Didsbury, which sell other companies working for Selfridges, Flannels and Susie products alongside its own. Watson, who Rachel deemed is a perfect fit “The shops have been wonderful testbeds to take its retailing side forward. for everything we do, which means we can “I am not in a rush, but there is definitely be even more confident when we talk to our a potential of us expanding to six stores in retail customers,” says Rachel. “Having our the North West in the next two years,” own shops means we have hands-on believes Rachel. experience of creating displays of Below: Belly Button’s store in Manchester’s Heaton Moor which has our products, what space they take recently undergone a revamp. up and how to best tell the story.” Prompted by the expansion of Belly Button giftware collection, a revamp of both of its shops was instigated, with Rachel’s husband Giles very much handson on the carpentry and general interiors front. Growth on the retail front forms part of the company’s future plans, but it will be mindful not to tread on the toes of its existing customers. Serendipity is a wonderful thing,
Rachel’s on point fashion interpretation while the new Elle incarnation is a triumph of Rachel design mastery. It takes a range that is 10 years old this month and moves it on with a current ‘wallpaper’ design treatment which is highly accessible. With Rachel buzzing with ideas for follow up greeting card ranges, and something clearly up her sleeve for PG Live, she has
clearly enjoyed rediscovering her greeting card ‘special place’. “It is so good to remind yourself of something that you not only love doing, but are good at,” says Rachel opening up about the relationship she has with greeting card design. “I like a challenge and am empowered by a need to design for a reason. Creating Signature, Mabel and the new Elle greeting card collections has taken me back to the roots of the business. I have loved it, and there’s lots more to come!”
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FOCUS ON…COMPANY ANNIVERSARIES
HAPPY ANNiVERSARY! Inset: Celebrating is one of the biggest things in greeting cards.
One of the great things about the greeting card industry is that there are always birthdays and anniversaries to celebrate so the business of selling cards continues – and it’s just as true with companies in the sector too. Here PG looks at just some of this year’s batch of big birthdays.
15 YEARS – THE ART OF PRiNT After more than 25 years working in wildlife conservation, Joe Cole was looking for a change of direction so, in 2010, began selling prints of paintings by his late father – also Joe – which had been successfully exhibited at Messum’s Gallery in London.
Already running Natural Partners Ltd with wife Karen, it was a good vehicle for selling the prints then, during a sales meeting, a gallery suggested that art greeting cards would be more popular – and they’ve never looked back. “From the start, we decided to concentrate on taking original paints and reproducing them as cards, rather than asking Left: Natural Partner’s story begins with Joe Cole senior’s prints. Below: Lesley Ann Ivory’s cats are perennially popular.
someone to design a card,” Joe said. And with his father, mum, uncle and three cousins all being artists as well as the network of students taught by his dad at Cleveland College of Art & Design, there was a ready source of wonderful artworks. From that first trade show on a tiny 2x1m stand at Spring Fair 2011, business has gradually built up through a customer base of mainly small indie retailers with several hundred across the UK and inroads just starting in North America. Joe added: “We faced a major setback in the last 15 months after I tripped in the village car park in September 2024 and ended up in A&E paralysed from the neck down due to a spinal injury! “Fortunately, after nine weeks in hospital I was allowed home to continue the long road to recovery and am now able to work on the computer between sessions of physio while I learn to walk again and business is picking up once more.” Some of the initial artists are still with Natural Partners, including Andy Broderick, Caroline Riley and Peter M Hicks, while there are now ranges from 70 artists and photographers, with Nikki Monaghan, Lesley Anne Ivory, Louise Scott and Kate Green among the firm favourites. And their loyal customers of 10
Above: Andy Broderick and Fiona Calder have stayed the course.
years and more include Number 10 Gallery in Rochdale, Kaboodle in Church Stretton, Little Blue Budgie in Totnes, The Card Centre in Felixstowe, Loft & Spires in Bury St Edmunds, Kim’s Bookshop in Arundel, Cornflower & Calico in Stroud, Ebbing Tide in Filey, and Innovation in Hebden Bridge. Having developed a reputation for highquality cards that many customers frame for display, Joe laughed: “One lady has bought one each of all 125 Lesley Anne Ivory cat designs with this in mind – she must have a lot of wall space and really like cats!” Left: The next generation – son Mathew at Home & Gift 2025. Below: Natural Partners’ first Spring Fair stand in 2011.
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30 YEARS – TiME iS FLYiNG! Some 30 years after starting her business designing and handmaking her cards by herself, Wendy JonesBlackett now works alongside husband Steve and their team, is a respected member of the GCA Council and makes regular media appearances about the greeting card industry. Having left her job designing terracotta pots for a giftware company, Wendy moved to Leeds and started as a sole trader in May 1996 under her maiden name of Wendy L Codling, with a fishrelated logo. She said: “In 2001 Steve joined and we started Wendy JonesBlackett Limited as the business had grown and we already had employees. We also wanted to have kids and actually have time to spend with them so we moved into premises and started litho printing, embossing and foiling.” Explaining that her original designs were handdrawn and water-coloured, with each card cut, creased and packed by hand too, making them individually meant there was no waste so she could trial new ranges relatively inexpensively – for one range, for example she mixed talcum powder with white acrylic to create an embossed effect, outlined with Humbrol enamel gold and silver paint. However, each card was quite expensive: “The costings had to include my time as well as materials – I was selling designs for £1.35 in 1996 which retailed at £3.25! With the advent of digital printing the options are endless nowadays but back then litho was the only route to printed cards.” Determined to ensure each range is different, there have been 35 so far, with Quicksilver being inducted into The Henry Cole Classic hall of
Above: The first handmade designs as Wendy L Codling. Below: All ranges are different, this is Sew-&-Sew. Below left: Wendy and Steve in 2003.
fame in 2024 for collections that have stood the test of time. Wendy added: “Two years ago I started as a Council member with the GCA and am really enjoying sharing my passion for greeting cards. Life is very busy as we still have our two boys living at home and I still design every card myself!” “I can’t quite believe it’s 30 years since we started, time is flying!” she said, and is grateful to her oldest customers Angels Too in Chapel Allerton, With Love in Oakwood, and Harriet & Dee in Didsbury, who still order regularly. Left: Wendy and Steve at a recent PG Live. Below: Quicksilver is a Henry Cole Classic.
20 YEARS – ALL SQUARE NOW Noticing what she felt was a gap in the market for children’s cards, 20 years ago Kali Stileman started her business as The Square Card Company and all cards were Below and right: Then and now – Kali with Jemima.
52 PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE
indeed that shape until the name change to Kali Stileman Publishing in 2017. Kali’s daughter Jemima joined the business after graduating and has gradually taken over the admin, sales and market sides to become head of operations, leaving Kali to be the mover, shaker and creator, with Tara starting as head of fulfilment in 2022, there’s a band of lovely ladies who pack the cards in the Dorset village where the company is based. Specialising in cards, flat wrap, and gifts, Kali Stileman Publishing has supplied hundreds of shops worldwide, including Waterstones, Kew Gardens,
John Lewis and Waitrose. “We’re based in rural Dorset with a studio surrounded by woodland and the gorgeous countryside – life couldn’t be better!” laughed Kali. “Our biggest challenge came during the lockdown of 2020, when our lovely warehouse closed down, meaning all of our stock was returned to us! An artic lorry and countless pallets of cards arrived on our doorstep and we had a moment of ‘oh f*ck! What are we going to do!’ “This scary situation turned out to be a real turning point for us as it meant that, with the help of two Portacabins, we’re now able to do everything ourselves. As much as we loved our pick, pack and
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Above: The first trade show and the latest. Right: Products have evolved from the original square cards.
dispatch team, it’s great to be involved in every step of the fulfilment process.
“As we now have super local printers in Dorchester, we’re able to print in much smaller numbers so there’s very little wastage – and any unwanted stock is donated to a local primary school! “ Working with customers is one of Kali’s favourite aspects of the job, and they still have a number of retailers from, the early days, such as Sandra from Space
205, Islay from Broughton Crafts and Vicky from Just Williams Toys, plus Giovanna from Chalkboard, who stocks her educational toy shop almost exclusively with Kali’s designs.
10 YEARS – WiNNiNG THE JOB LOTTERY
Above: New York was Stephanie’s first trade show. Above right: Stephanie licences designs to Glick for giftwrappings. Right: New 2026 designs from Stephanie.
A work placement with Hallmark was Stephanie Davies’ route into the greeting card industry, straight from her university degree in illustration. “I loved it so much that I knew from then that greeting cards were what I wanted to do,” she said, winning a surface print competition around the same time that allowed her to exhibit at her first show in New York and get an introduction into how licensing works. After licensing her designs to Hallmark, UKGreetings and Riverside Cards, Stephanie said: “I found the courage to print designs under my own brand. Digital printing was becoming much more popular, allowing me to do smaller print runs which were fairly inexpensive. “My first collections were printed by The Imaging Centre and I sent out catalogues to independent shops I admired and, to my surprise, they ordered! Some of those initial customers – like Long Barn, Freda & Bert, Green Pheasant, Panda Cards, Arrowsmiths, The Hedgehog Bookshop, and Follie – are still placing orders today, and I'm so thankful they’ve supported me all this time.”
Back in the early days it was the classic tale of the floor of her parents’ house being covered in cards and hand-embellishing each one, then getting family and friends to help as the print runs got bigger, and expansion overseas, including working with Notes & Queries in the US. Stephanie added: “When we moved into our house in need of a renovation, we decided to turn it into a warehouse for a while until I found my fulfilment centre. This has been by far the biggest game changer for me as it allowed me to gain time back for creativity. “As an artist predominantly, the business side of things didn't always come naturally. To my surprise, I’ve grown to love a spreadsheet and to making sure the business is growing and running smoothly, but it doesn't come without its challenges. Although I feel in many ways like I've won the job lottery, working out numbers, print runs and cash flow can seem impossible at times.” Her proudest moment so far has been winning The Henries’ Lynn Tait Most Promising Designer award in 2023, which led to “a dream collaboration” with Glick on giftwrap collections, and she’s now looking to branch out into more licensing. Stephanie said: “From seeing healthy sales reports to receiving a message from Below: Her proudest moment was wining The Henries Young Designer award in 2023. someone who just wants to say how much they loved a card, it reminds me that people are connecting with what I create and that’s worth taking a moment to celebrate – before I'm on to the next project!”: PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE 53
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10 YEARS – A PROUD BOAST In a decade of running Kingfisher Cards, only one member of staff has left – to return to their nursing career – which owner Paul Urban is pretty proud to boast. Kingfisher now has 10 permanent staff, including Paul’s old footballing pal James Mitchell who has come on board to complete the move from one-man-band to properly-run business, taking on credit control, admin and much of the everyday tasks. The Kingfisher Cards story began when Mark Fisher, owner of K Kards in Londonderry, set up a business to provide the special titles he’d been unable to source. A couple of years later, after leaving his role as sales director at Cherry Orchard Publishing, Paul took over, moving the business to Torquay where he initially did everything himself from a 12m unit. Showing at Spring Fair 2019 for the first time to get better known, Paul launched the Aura traditions designs alongside the Special Titles, followed by his 99p Value range, with outworkers wrapping Below: Sandy got hands-on for the racking build. Below right: Paul and James Mitchell.
Above: Paul Urban (centre) with the first of Kingfisher’s three Henries awards. Above right: And early trade show stand.
and packing. Among them was Jackie Sandford who Paul then took on as his first Kingfisher employee, and she’s still managing the warehouse staff. Having weathered the Covid debacle by “clearing all my supplier debts and running the business hand-to-mouth targeting every post office and newsagent I could think of as I knew they were still open and trading”, Paul kept the business afloat and even found many new customers. His wife Sandy has also played her part, not least when Paul took on the first warehouse in 2022 and she helped him build the racking that turned out to be far less easy to assemble than advertised! Looking to the future, he’s stepping a toe into the gifting sector with new own-brand and licensed mugs, coasters and candles for 2026, and Paul added: “We’re still growing. We acquired The Dog’s Paw brand in mid 2025 and I’ve recently signed a licensing agreement with Davora and brought 100 or so designs of religious and other festive celebrations into our range. Tie ups with Emma Lawrence and a good relationship with Terry Taylor at Hooli Mooli have seen other licensing collaborations progress. Our new everyday catalogue is out soon and it’s 200-plus pages!”
10 YEARS – A FAMiLY AFFAiR Greeting card packaging and wrapping solutions company Transrap is a true family business, having been started by Peter Yorston in 2016, with his son Oliver now managing the day-to-day operations, while his other son Harry works within production, and niece Chloe oversees accounts. “It’s a true multigenerational enterprise,” Oliver said of the business, explaining that his father Peter had begun his career in the 1980s in his father’s packaging company, the original Transrap, then launched his own in 1992 supplying a wide range of industries, from greeting card and beauty to food and pet food. Having decided to part ways, he established Transrap mark two focusing specifically on cards and beauty, and Oliver added: “It’s grown year on year, driven by a strong family ethos, hands-on service, and a commitment to high-quality, reliable production. “A major milestone was in July 2024, when Transrap acquired
Fulcrum Films following founder Ray Clarke’s decision to retire. Ray has been a tremendous credit to the industry, and we are deeply grateful for the support and trust shown by his long-standing customers throughout the transition.” The move towards naked cards and reducing plastic has meant adapting by expanding the compostable materials range, with Nativia being the stand-out success and the post popular of this type of wrap. “Helping our customers transition to greener solutions has been a central part of our development,” Oliver said, “and increasing automation, tighter lead times, and rising sustainability expectations have all shaped our operations, driving continuous investment and improvement within the business.” The team is the heart of Transrap, with Left: Header bags are just one of the products.
Above: The Transrap family (left to right) Harry, Peter and Oliver Yorston.
links back to the previous businesses factory manager Kristoff has been with the family for 20 years, and internal sales manager Hanna will mark 25 years’ service in May. Two new bag machines, for small to medium runs and one dedicated to producing compostable bags with in-line print capabilities, were major investments in 2025, and the coming year sees plans to further upgrade capabilities, refine the product offering, and continue enhancing efficiency and service. PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE 55
INTRODUCING
THE 2026 COLLECTION 130+ WONDERFUL NEW DESIGNS
GET YOUR HANDS ON THE NEW COLLECTION NOW AT
thinkofmedesigns.com
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RETAILER IN FOCUS Below: The bright and breezy counter area in the Ealing store.
SALMON FiSHiNG It has been quite a year for the darling lifestyle store group Oliver Bonas, welcoming 21 new or upsized stores during 2025, meaning it is now only a smidge off 100 locations. With more stores in the offing and its greeting card sales very much on the rise, PG enjoyed a catch up with Kate Salmon, head of home and gift buying and Lucy Cornwall, junior buyer to fish for insights for the coming year. “We have had a strong year on cards. It has been great to see the reaction to the new ranges introduced,” revealed Kate Salmon, head of home and gift buying at Oliver Bonas. “It is lovely to see this organic growth as we become more of a destination for cards, offering a curated selection to appeal to our customers,” she added. Truth be told, Oliver Bonas’ success on cards mirrors its growing standing in the hearts of consumers, as the design-savvy public have responded to its arrestingly cheery selection of fashion, homewares, beauty & wellness, kitchen & dining and books. While very much an omnichannel player the expansion of its retail estate, which now stands at 95 stores, has brought the physical joy of the OB brand to more people.
Above: The new Marlow store was formerly a bank. Below: The footage given over to greeting cards has been expanded in some Oliver Bonas stores, such as in its Waterloo Station location.
and makes full use of its stunning curved frontage. The retail group has come a long way since founder Oliver (Olly) Tress opened the inaugural store as a small fashion accessories shop in South West London’s Fulham in 1993, winning a myriad of awards along the way, including the Best Specialist Multiple Retailer of Gifts trophy in The Greats awards in May 2025 as well as several Retas awards over the years. Kate Salmon has been part of the OB journey for the last 13 years. As she sees it, “I fell into retail” after university. She joined Fenwick Newcastle’s graduate scheme, staying
As ever the new stores have their own character - each designed slightly differently – with great staff training meaning that passionate, enthusiastic staff enhance the experience for shoppers. For example, the new Marlow store, which is in a former bank, makes a feature of the ginormous safe, while the new store in Lincoln is in a Grade II-listed building Right: Kate Salmon with The Greats 2025 Best Specialist Multiple Retailer of Gifts trophy. PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE
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WHAT’S TRENDiNG FOR 2026? A heads up for customers: grab your sunnies and a beach towel as OB will be taking everyone off to the sunny Balearic Islands in 2026. “Our design theme has been inspired by Ibiza and that eclectic, creative way of living and socialising,” explains Kate. “It’s all about the warm terracotta tones that capture Ibiza and the heat. It features pink and brown with cream, along with flashes of red, or butter yellow, to contrast and lift. This makes the design feel fresh and interesting but still feminine, contrasted with fruit motifs and citrus colours and tones, mixed with blue.” She adds that the theme evolves and is loose, conjuring holiday and island vibes. “We have had some fun with Mediterranean influences for our kitchen and dining collections which includes a tapas-themed range, fun sardine accessories and citrus motifs. Alongside all of this we have leopard print which is a key pattern, teamed with red detailing and modern checks in rich tones. This has been translated brilliantly into textiles and travel accessories.” Above: Oliver Bonas’ Lucy Cornwall (right) and Nicola Connolly (left) with Rosie Tate, director of Cath Tate Cards at last year’s PG Live.
with the store for seven years as a buyer for cards, gifts, stationery and luggage. She then joined Oliver Bonas as a junior buyer – with greeting cards part of her remit from the off, alongside novelty gifts and books - rising through the ranks as buyer for kitchen & dining and home accessories. The role of buying manager followed, with Kate subsequently moving into the role of head of home and gift buying almost five years ago, where she now leads a team of 17, including Lucy Cornwall who heads up the greeting card buying. Despite the company’s size – it now employs more than 2,000 people and counting - Kate confirms that it’s still very much all hands-on deck, with Olly inextricably involved with the business, personally signing off every product. The majority, some 70%, are designed inhouse. “If you exclude novelty, beauty, gift books and greeting cards, which are 100% branded, it’s actually 89% own label designed,” points out Kate. The retailer has extended its own brand magic into gift packaging in the last year, across wrap and gift bags. “This is something we have wanted to do for a while and it has been really successful,” confirmed Kate, with the popular OB Pierre the Cat featuring in the line-up. However, greeting cards, an “important” part of the product offer, firmly remain the bastion of branded publishers. “As we see it, they are a window into the brand and how we showcase what we are about,” summed up Kate, hence the card selection is carefully curated. “Olly, with Lucy and I will spend time signing off each individual card. says Kate. “There is so much choice and many talented designers so it can be overwhelming, but we take the time to curate a selection that we
are really proud of and that resonates with our customer,” she added. Elucidating, Kate shared: “We have a soft spot for cards as they are a finishing touch to our gift offer, and we love the flexibility in being able to introduce newness and work with some of our long-standing suppliers while also being able to support smaller independent designers.” New stores have seen OB invest in more space for greeting card walls. “Visually they look more appealing, and it gives us more greeting
Looking towards the first few months of 2026 year Kate reveals will see a further five to ten Oliver Bonas projects coming to fruition, including new stores, relocations and upsizing current stores. As Kate sums up: “We haven’t reached saturation point in terms of stores yet, with the potential of more stores in the pipeline, particularly in Ireland, and greeting cards will very much be playing a part in this.” However, more immediately: “It will be all go getting Valentine’s out to stores, and a quick turnaround for Mother’s Day, which will be a challenge being so close together this
Above: A display in the recently revamped Wimbledon store. Above right: The new Oliver Bonas store in Lincoln. Right: Olly Tress, co-founder of the business has always had a soft spot for greeting cards.
year. We will start to call in Christmas card samples for a sign off in April. Then before trade show season kicks off, we do a review at the start of the year and a strategy to streamline ranges, analyse what has been working and why, while freeing up options to invest in newness,” said Kate, coming up for breath. “We will then focus on catching up with our supplier base, review best sellers and introduce new lines and be on the hunt for the next emerging trend! We won’t be bored!”
card authority in stores,” says Kate. As far as specific greeting card design trends are concerned, Kate and colleague Lucy have tracked: “Empowering terms such as ‘queen’, ‘goddess’, Western vibes alongside our love of animals particularly cats/dogs remain strong” while humour, playful designs “and a pun or two!” also continue to perform well.
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IN CONVERSATION WITH… JACKSONS CRS
From its humble origins that hailed from the cellar of a drapers’ shop 50 years ago, Jackson’s CRS has evolved into an awardwinning leading distributor and wholesaler that offers a selection of 30,000 different products to its 7,000 customers who are based all over the world. PG travelled to its Sheffield base to meet third generation directors Greg and his brother Robert, who now work alongside their father Gary Jackson, to find out how its 50th anniversary trade show activity at Harrogate Christmas & Gift Fair and Spring Fair amplifies how this is a business has its finger on the buzzer.
FINGER ON THE BUZZER Being a wholesaler and distributor can be somewhat challenging on the marketing front. The buildings from which they operate are unlikely to be notably pleasing, ostensibly procured for their logistical capabilities while screenshots of their state-of-the-art computer systems which track their customers’ orders for their thousands of products by the second may be mighty impressive, but are not aesthetically pleasing. Yet this has not really bothered Jackson’s CRS, which this year is looking to celebrate the Sheffield-based business’ 50th anniversary, just happy to have not just navigated the twists and turns of its retail base’s challenges over the last five decades and counting, but to have been well ahead of them. This month’s Christmas Home & Gift Show, followed by next month’s Spring Fair will see Jackson’s ‘buzzing’ about its half century, offering participants the opportunity to win vouchers for Betty’s Tea Rooms or Fortnum & Mason respectively for holding their nerve on a wire buzzer game. This is certainly apposite as ‘holding their nerve’ is certainly what the Jackson family have done for years. Over 50 years ago Charlie Jackson, aka professional entertainer Terry Daniels, finding himself with a bit of off-stage time and having sensed a potential in selling greeting cards, felt opening a greeting card shop could feature in his future. He was wrong, but not completely. As his son Gary, now managing director of the business explained: “Dad had bought a lot of greeting cards, but could not find a suitable
Above left: Gary and Greg Jackson trying out the 50th anniversary ‘buzzer’ contraption that punters can try out their steady hands at Harrogate Christmas & Home and Spring Fair to be in with a chance to win prizes.
shop location. So instead, using the cellar of my Mum’s drapers’ shop as his base offered his card stock to other retailers. He sold all of the cards he had bought in a couple of days and so surmised that he might be onto something. He was right!”
In 1980, to coincide with Jackson’s opening its first warehouse and starting its van sales operation, Gary left his job at the local town hall to join the family business and drive it forward. Very much early adopters of technology, Jackson’s invested in a full-blown stock control and computer ordering system way ahead of many of its competitors and customers, for that matter. Gary took over the running of the business in 2002 which coincided with the expansion of the company’s physical footprint in its Sheffield base, facilitating the extension of its Left: While Robert Jackson (left) has responsibility for the logistics and HR of the business, his brother Greg is the IT and marketing maestro. Below left: As well as all the wholesale card publishers, Jacksons has also forged a relationship with Table 12 (a QR coded Scanimate design, pictured) for several ranges, plus with DTR publishers Lil Wabbit. Paper Rose and Marina B. Below: One of Jackson’s many premises in Sheffield.
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product portfolio to adjust to the changing retail landscape, not least the deregulation of newspaper supplies which meant news was no longer a prime footfall driver for CTNs. “We saw this as an opportunity to sell CTNs, Post Offices and other retailers other products, and with our investment in technology and what developed into a rep and agent force, we were well positioned to grasp these, as well as the other opportunities and acquisitions that have followed since,” said Gary. Bringing Gary’s sons Robert and Greg into the business - Rob to head up operations and HR and Greg to drive marketing and IT - to work with the senior management team, further fuelled this opportunistic drive. While now supposedly only working three days a week, it is hard to keep Gary away from the company’s computer screen of transactions, which gives a second by second account of orders placed, product availability and monies in. “I am more than happy to empower people, including Rob and Greg; they have most definitely learned to swim,” says Gary, paying tribute to the Jackson’s day to day team. “However, I fully admit that I am fascinated by technology and how it can track our business, where orders are coming from, by customer, by product and sales point,” he adds. As Greg explains, not only has the company’s customer base expanded exponentially, now spanning 7,000 accounts all over the world, but so too has its product portfolio. When his grandfather Charlie started the business, wholesale greeting cards were very much the bulk of the business, now the balance has changed substantially. “Greeting cards are still important to us as indeed are gift packaging, but they have been joined by other areas, notably stationery, Below: Legendary publisher Simon Elvin (second right) cut the ribbon with Charlie Jackson (second left) to pronounce the Jackson’s showroom and warehouse extension open in 1992 with Gary Jackson (left) and industry stalwart David Tallentire (right) holding the ribbon.
Right: The company invests in multiple catalogues every year, including dedicated ones for Celebrations covering partyware and Valentine’s. Below right: (second and third left) Jackson’s Mark Molloy, greeting card buyer and Greg Jackson, IT and marketing manager were delighted to be presented with The Retas 2025 Best Greeting Card Wholesaler trophy by Sensations’ managing director, Ade Longe.
partyware, gifts, toys and household products,” reveals Greg, who is catering for this retailer appetite with a whole programme of promotions and catalogues, as well as distribution deals with key stationery brands. While wholesale greeting cards may no longer be the mainstay of Jackson’s business, the company is finding success with its broader card portfolio, which now also includes DTR brands such as Marina B, Lil Wabbit and its ongoing collaboration with Table 12. So, with the company having scored its first half century, how does Greg feel to be among those at the Jackson’s crease read to bat for the coming decade and beyond? “I am well aware that Jackson’s is something of institution, which is a privilege not to be taken lightly. I would like to hope that a reputation of being a dusty wholesaler
is well behind us. It is my belief that we, as a team, can now take the company forward as a distribution business that is ready for the next 50 years.”
Brief history of Jackson’s
1976 - Charlie Jackson bought cards to open a greeting card shop, but couldn’t find premises, so started the limited company in the cellar of Pin Cushion, Maureen Jackson’s drapery business. 1980 - Moved to Sheffield’s Staveley Road and opened first warehouse. Gary Jackson joined the company (then a van sales operation as well as a cash n carry). 1981 - Moved to Scotland Street, a 3,000 sq ft premises. 1984 - Moved to Surbiton Street, an initial site of 8,000 sq ft. Acquired Parkway Greetings and Strand Libraries mid 80s. 1991 - Purchased an adjacent 3,000 sq ft. premises. Above: Juggling his time as a 1992 - Showroom and office extension, taking the site professional entertainer Charlie to over 20,000 sq ft. Jackson, initially established Jackson’s wholesale business from the cellar of 2001 - Purchased 4,000 sq ft Clifton Street site for Pin Cushion, his wife Maureen’s bulk storage. Sheffield drapery shop. Below: Charlie Jackson (front left) at a 2007 - Acquired Leisure Libraries. Sheffield Wednesday event, sponsored 2009 – Magson’s six sales team members joined by Jackson’s with friends and family. the team. 2010 - Purchased an acre of land for further expansion. 2014 - Goods Inwards extension to main showroom building. 2017 - Marketplace changes so closed Hull. 2021 - Refurbed the Clifton Street site and increased sq footage to over 43,000 sq ft. 2024 – Acquired Kardwell Hobbs. 2025 – Won Best Greeting Card Wholesaler award for the 6th time in The Retas.
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A selection of new ranges that will be on show at Top Drawer (11-13 January, London, Olympia)
Painterly Poise One of three new ranges from Citrus Bunn is Watercolour Wishes, which is a gentle departure from the publisher’s signature animal pun cards. This elegant collection showcases beautiful, hand-painted watercolour designs paired with debossed wording which add a touch of luxury. Citrus Bunn 07746324124 www.citrusbunn.com Top Drawer Stand U60
Pressing The Point Stormy Knight is making its debut into letterpress with its official launch of Pressed & Posted, a collection of 60 designs. All are illustrated by the publisher’s founder Sarah Jackson, with the designs championing contemporary illustration style fused with traditional printing practices. Each card is printed in the UK onto thick 350gsm board on a Heidelberg press and each comes with a fleck craft envelope. Stormy Knight 0117 9098684 www.stormyknight.co.uk Top Drawer Stand T61
Top Billing Quackers is Earlybird’s bold new humour collection for 2026, showcasing the fabulous, kitschy creations of Amy Hastings, a queen of quirky charm. Packed with sassy, sweet and playfully pun-filled designs, the range is printed on recycled board and finished with spot UV and foil for extra sparkle. Earlybird Designs 01227 765 372 www.earlybirddesigns.co.uk Top Drawer Stand T57
Happy Days
Child’s Play
Among the 340 new designs which The Art File is launching this month across cards, wrap, stationery and gifts is the Happy Things collection. This joyful new range of birthday mini cards has been created by The Art File's talented head designer, Lucie Cox, with every design featuring fun and playful characters surrounded by colour. The cards are printed on recycled board, finished with emboss and UV, giving the cards a bright, glossy finish. The Art File 0115 648 3240 www.theartfiletrade.com Top Drawer Stand K81
Running With Scissors has launched its very first children’s range which is perfect for disgusting daughters, naughty nephews and chaotic kids. According to the publisher its Revolting Children collection celebrates everything that would make a cheeky 10-yearold snort milkshake out of their nose! Each card comes with a canary yellow envelope. Running With Scissors 07514600422 www.faire.com/direct/runningwithscissors Top Drawer Stand W56
Piecing It Together Among the wealth of newness from Ohh Deer is its inaugural collection of Jigsaw Cards with designs aimed at both adults and children. The adult designs include 45 jigsaw pieces while the kids’ ones have eight puzzle pieces. Each comes with a postcard and an envelope, so the message can be written on the postcard and popped in the envelope with the jigsaw pieces. Ohh Deer 01509649478 www. ohhdeer.com Top Drawer Stand J61 PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE 65
January 2026 Issue New Releases Full Page.pdf
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NEW FOR 2026 A total of 45 New Velvet titles in code 150, 75 and 60. Main relations, minor relations, open Birthday and BIG ages... Awesome as EVER!
Modern, fresh and fun! 56 New Signature titles come with the usual punchy JJ finishes!
Twingles Neons
Twingles enter the Neon era! Bright oranges and pinks give our fab juvenile range a refreshingly modern twist!
Wedding &
Anniversary
MARCH 2026
A Brand New collection of 65 titles, introducing the stunning ‘Velvet Gallery’ ... the same Velvet style but with a full colour feel! Tel: 01423 563740 66_PG January 2026.indd 1
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A selection of new ranges that will be on show at Top Drawer (11-13 January, London, Olympia)
Roaring Twenties Apple & Clover is unveiling a striking new Deco Collection of 28 designs. Exuding 1920s decadence, the designs feature bold lines, luxe finishes and intricate die-cut detailing, accented by elegant gold foil. All 125mm×175mm, each card comes paired with a coordinating gold-foil diamond–print envelope. Apple & Clover 07790 900976 www.appleandclover.com Top Drawer Stand V33
Baby Love Among the newcomers from the Kali Stileman portfolio, the stork has delivered some delightful new baby designs, which feature on its Square Cards, Tiddly Widdlies and thick flat wrapping paper. Bold, blocky Scandi-style storks feature against pink, blue or putty backgrounds. Kali Stileman 07344 707167 www.kalistileman.co.uk Top Drawer Stand R58
Green Scene Raspberry Blossom is serving up a full pantry of designs, with over 125 brand new greeting cards joining its portfolio. These include two new collections, Verve and Joyfoilly (pictured), both of which feature fabulous embossed shiny green foil. The cards in both ranges come with a mint envelope. Raspberry Blossom 01926 257757 www.raspberryblossom.com Top Drawer Stand T75
Top Of The Pops
Taking Flight
Ricicle’s new card range, Joy Pop showcases a playful mix of bright colours and whimsical illustrations. Each card is hand-painted, giving them a warm, personal feel, and die-cut for an extra flourish. The range features birthday messages, flowers, popcorn, hot air balloons, cakes, gifts and charming characters, all set against soft pastel backgrounds. Ricicle Cards 07850757676 www.riciclecards.com Top Drawer Stand S75
Making its trade show debut as a publisher, Maybugs Designs is launching its brand-new Disco and Disco Stripe adult humour ranges. Comprising 55 designs across open, occasions and ages, they are printed on a textured board and come with a canary yellow envelope, wrapped in cello or naked with a clasp. The designs have been tried and tested in their own Maybugs stores. Maybugs Desings 01323 841 037 www.maybugsdesigns.com Top Drawer Stand W37
Sing Along Cath Tate is pumping up the volume with the launch of Twisted Lyrics, a new range of 14 music-themed greeting cards that reimagine iconic song lyrics set against block-colour backgrounds, retro-style text and a de-bossed finish. Printed in the UK on 100% recycled paper, they come with a kraft envelope. Cath Tate Cards 0208 671 2166 www.cathtatecards.com Top Drawer Stand S60
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A selection of product launches to kick off the new year.
More Kooking Bug Art has expanded its best-selling Kooks range with the addition of 10 new designs, each depicting a quirky animal character illustrated in collaged patterns. Every card is finished with elegant, embossed foil detailing in either gold or blue. Measuring 167mmx118mm, the cards are available either naked or wrapped in a biodegradable bag and come with a pale green envelope. Bug Art 0115 929 4776 www.bugart.co.uk
In The Bag Furry Friends New from Rosie Made A Thing is Dog Days! All 12 designs feature John Bond’s quirky artwork which give a glimpse into the wacky world of our furry friends. And despite the range name, there are a couple of cat designs thrown in for good measure! All 145mm square, they come naked with a white envelope. Rosie Made A Thing 0116 406 2000 www.rosiemadeathing.co.uk
Wholesale publisher, Out of the Blue Studios has enhanced its Acquire instock gift wrap brand, with a new everyday gift bag range comprising over 40 designs across several sizes. This premium gift bag collection offers a wide variety of designs to suit differing consumer tastes. The gift bags are printed inside and out on premium FSC-accredited paper with foil enhancements and silk handles. Out of the Blue 07795 957995 www.outofthebluestudios.co.uk
Summer Loving Hello Petal
Among the new launches from Hotchpotch London is The Pablo Collection. The designs are an eclectic mix of over-sized blooms, whimsical cats, checkerboard and decorative tiles. Based on original painted artwork, the designs evoke feelings of warm, long summer Mediterranean days and magical starry nights. As well as a die-cut arched top, the cards include neon coral and gold foil finishes. Hotchpotch London 01243 792600 www.hotchpotchlondon.com
Petal is Dandelion Stationery’s brand-new greeting card range, which offers a fresh take on classic occasion cards. The collection covers all major sending occasions and features luxurious gold-foil detailing across both the typography and illustration accents. Each 155mm square card is supplied with a crisp white envelope. Dandelion 01332 504940 www.dandelionstationery.co.uk
Marking Moments IC&G’s new 2026 Milestone Collection transforms once-in-a-lifetime events into lasting keepsakes. From Married in 2026 and Engaged in 2026 to New Home, Born In, Christened In, Graduated, Prom and Retired in 2026, each design marks a defining chapter. Each design incorporates a bold, gold foilembossed 2026 set against contemporary artwork. All are designed, printed and finished in the UK. IC&G 01202 897494 www.icgcards.com PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE 69
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Future Festivities
Inset: Traditional colours are still popular, but there’s a move towards a bright, contemporary palette.
It’s that most wonderful time of the year already – the world may have just celebrated Christmas 2025, but the greeting card industry is already well on the way to the 2026 festive season, with many publishers embracing the design trends that retailers will be poring over at the first trade shows of the new year. Tradition always has its part to play in Christmas designs but for 2026 there’s going to be a lot more colour about than just the expected red and green. “Expect bold pinks and greens, and hues of blues coming through across both cards and gift packaging,” said Woodmansterne’s art director Ian Blake. “We’re introducing a more vibrant colour palette!” Another clear direction emerging is a renewed appreciation for nostalgia. “We’re seeing a definite move towards a vintage aesthetic for next Christmas,” he added. “Folk and Scandinavian influences are coming to the fore, bringing a crafted, handmade feel to the collection.” And innovation remains a key part of the range development, as Woodmansterne is introducing a small selection of die-cut cards and new 3D boxed formats, while “placing additional focus on a playful, female-to-female send, which continues to resonate strongly with shoppers”. Rich festive colour palettes are also coming through at UK Greetings where the evolution of the classic colours
of Christmas is showcased in its opulent RHS cards featuring foliage icons. From UKG’s Carlton brand there are contemporary looks with stylised lettering and bows alongside Jolly Holly-Days’ premium festive iconography and gold foiled Right: Die-cut designs are new from Woodmansterne. Below: UKG has brought in fresher captions. Below right: Pink’s in at Stripey Cats.
detailing, while Camden Signature’s Gallery Wild celebrates the wonder and whimsy of winter wildlife. Across the line, UKG also continues to cover a multitude of captions from Mum, Wife and Husband right through to Granddaughter’s 1st Christmas and even From The Dog, and captions have been reworked to feel fresher, such as Love You At Christmas And Always versus the more traditional To The One I Love. With more than 800 new designs, Rebecca Badrock, brand manager joked: “There’s more choice than a chocolate selection box!” although there’s a serious side too as all UKG cards are 100% sustainable “allowing customers to help protect their world while also spreading joy to it”. For the last couple of years PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE 71
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Above: Ling’s new boxed singles. Above right: All-new designs from GBCC. Below right: Contemporary colours by Louise Tiler.
Stripey Cats’ Christmas designs have been moving away from traditional colours and introduced some pink and blue. Top cat Jonathan Crosby explained: “The classic colours of red, gold and green will always work, but it’s nice to try something different, we paired our Christmas cards with a pink envelope and used hints of pink in the artwork while still keeping traditional Christmas imagery and colours which has been well received by customers.” Extensive market research and sales data give Ling Design and Great British Card Company plenty to work with to implement their 100% new Christmas policy. As David Byk, ceo said: “It’s evident traditional themes and colours truly resonate and create great sell-through in-store. There’s always huge demand for the more traditional designs and strong use of words and sentiment but we ensure we have a card for every sender and recipient. “As such, we’ve developed our modern traditional looks and also created a more contemporary aesthetic – although this doesn’t mean you need to reinvent the wheel, as classic icons such as robins, post boxes, penguins, and presents still work very well but over the years we’ve developed how those are portrayed as tastes change.” Having seen increases in sales of higher-priced boxed cards, Ling is launching a new selection of singles in a box with a complementary design, and there’s an increase in high code relations cards as the publisher has seen growth in this area too. “Customers recognise the value of sending a physical, handwritten card,”
David added. “We are absolutely seeing that customers are willing to spend more on cards that show they care, and it’s something we expect to see more of in 2026 and even more so at Christmas time. A new Christmas collection with a fresh modern look has been released by Louise Tiler, featuring both general and key-relation captions, including the very popular Mum & Dad, Wife and Husband. Creative artworker Jade Challies said: “Instead of the traditional red and green, the palette leans into contemporary pinks and oranges, paired with our textured gold-foil finish for a subtle, lightcatching detail. “Classic motifs such as wreaths, robins and Christmas trees appear throughout, alongside bright berry designs and an updated version of a previous customer favourite card featuring a gold-foil stag.” Wrendale Designs agrees trends for 2026 suggest a shift toward a more contemporary festive aesthetic while there’s still a place for traditional charm, with the January launch adding new designs to single Christmas cards, boxed cards and advent calendars, and other new products include festive notebooks, a planner and socks. Below: Wrendale’s pets are popular. Below right: Kali Stileman’s trad text, modern styling.
“Although the classic colour palette of red, green and golds continues to be popular, especially among our customers seeking a nostalgic feel,” explained founder and creative director Hannah Dale, “softer neutrals and warm metallics are becoming increasingly popular too. We’re also seeing an increase in popularity of designs with dogs, cats and other pets as well as atmospheric nature scenes. However, robins and countryside animals like donkeys and highland cows are always among our bestsellers.” Jemima Stileman, operations director at Kali Stileman, admitted: “We’ve kept our Christmas messages traditional – you just can’t go wrong with Happy Christmas! The messages correspond to the motif – from pretty Christmas bells with ‘ding dong merrily on high’ to a sweet and smiley star with ‘twinkle twinkle little star’. “In contrast to the traditional festive colours, our latest collection is printed in a sumptuous array of pinks, from a deep magenta to a soft pale pink. As well as the traditional Christmas characters such as Father Christmas and the Three Wise Men, our latest designs also include fun festive faces like a smiley brussel sprout and Christmas cracker!” An expansion of premium card formats is the news from Danilo, where customers are increasingly seeking keepsake value in their festive sending, and licensing director Dan Grant commented: “We’re introducing more elevated touches such as sustainably-sourced attachments, more PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE 73
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Charity begins with a card
Above: Andy’s Man Club is the first Dean Morris charity tie-up. Above right: The slim FSDU for GBCC’s Fairdeal For Charity. Below: Rosie’s helping Save The Children. Right: Out Of The Blue is supporting Share A Smile.
tactile finishes and added-value components that make cards feel gift-worthy as well as send-worthy – like paper Christmas tree decorations with a wooden-style effect and reusable drink coasters.” And certain characters and brands are clearly setting the pace for the licensed card specialist with The Snowman, Bluey, The Grinch and Elf the movie emerging as standout performers. Feedback at Stormy Knight is also that people are looking for extra-special cards for their nearest and dearest as director Sarah Jackson commented: “Sales of our pop-out Christmas bauble cards seem to reflect that too so we’re continuing to focus on higher-quality single cards with extra finishes, rather than lower-priced singles or multi-packs.”
One of the particularly lovely things about Christmas cards is that they very often support a favourite good cause while also making that personal connection with friends and family. Many publishers have established charitable links, such as Noel Tatt Group’s Help 32 brand helping, funnily enough, 32 charities, and having raised well over £2million in the 20-plus years of the partnership. Woodmansterne links with hands-on charities that work directly with those in need, such as AgeUK, Mind, British Heart Foundation and Greenfingers, raising £211,182.25 in 2024. And the good causes side is particularly important for GBCC, where the bumper boxes have been expanded and the Fairdeal For Charity range increased with a new pack concept of a larger foiled card in a more contemporary design “but still at a great price”, David Byk, ceo said, and it’s also available in a slimmer FSDU for that hard-to-fill space. There’s a new 2026 range coming from Out Of The Blue Studios which is working with Spread A Smile, raising both money and awareness by having the charity message and details on the back – and pledging a minimum donation of £10,000. Spread A Smile enhances wellbeing and helps young patients and their families cope with the pain and anxiety of serious illness and hospitalisation by funding in-person hospital visits, virtual sessions and family events, along with entertainers from magicians to musicians, artists, fairies and therapy dogs. The Christmas charity packs are back for 2026 at Ohh Deer, supporting more good causes than ever, and there are flexible stocking options allowing customers to choose their own SKUs or take recommendations on bestsellers, with the roll-out of a dedicated POS display because presentation matters. Rosie Made A Thing has made it even easier to help Save The Children by putting a donate button on its website over the Christmas sales period, allowing b2c customers to add a £1 donation which the publisher then matches. And, known for his humour cards, Dean Morris launched his first charity link up in 25 years with the Santa Goes To Andy’s Man Club design, where 100% of the profits will go to support the men's mental health and suicide prevention charity which offers free peer-to-peer support groups. red, green and golds but are seeing a lean towards more pinks too. “Our new collection with Shelby Warwood embraces alternative tree decorations and festive scenes with a contemporary twist – we love the classic cocktails in vintage glasses and the cowboy Left and below: Cards with extras from Danilo. boot baubles!” Touches of gold and hand-embellished crystals make Stephanie Davies’ new Merry & Bright collection sparkle, with its hand-painted foliage of blood oranges, figs and holly complementing the playful dogs and robins. And the subtle use of eclectic patterns such as leaves and tartan
“We’ve noticed a big trend towards nostalgia and vintage decorations – think snow globes, kitsch tree decorations and multicoloured fairy lights that were big in the 80s! We've still got plenty of
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FOCUS ON… CHRISTMAS 2026 DESIGN TRENDS
give a warm and rich colour palette while pairing with the new licensed 2026 Christmas gift wrap ranges with Glick. While the beloved red, green and gold combos feature strongly at The Art File, the publisher is also leaning into the contemporary colour trend “suited to a younger audience” according to sales and marketing director James Mace. “Popular Christmas symbols have a strong presence, with more playful imagery emerging as an upcoming alternative. Stripes and bows, festive food imagery and playful animals are all becoming more prevalent.”
On the caption front, traditional captions for individuals and relations, such as Special Couple and Both Of You, remain popular, with James adding: “Newer captions such as Cosy Christmas are being carried over to 2026 as they’ve Above left: Stormy performed well,” Knight’s cowboy boots and cocktails. and he teased: Above: A rich palette by Stephanie “Several brandDavies. new captions are Left: The Art File’s playful imagery. coming to the 2026 Christmas collection that are more unique and cater to more of a niche audience.” A love for whimsical designs is to the fore at Noel Tatt Group, as seasonal design and social media manager Emily Terris noted: “Traditional elements are painted in a softer and more dreamlike quality from artists like Laura Thomas, Pip Wilson and Helen Curran who are adept at creating a winter wonderland. Through this, we’re seeing a continuing love for the British countryside and fauna through an elevated and idyllic lens.” On the colour front, the luxe trend is continuing with deep burgundy, teals and blue gem tones highlighted with rich gold foil, and Emily said a more focused approach to favourite festive icons works best, highlight the details of a single robin, bauble or pair of Champagne glasses.
Cause and effect
She added: “We’re seeing less of Mum & Dad or Grandparents captions as nuclear families become less common, so we’ve increased our To You All, Special Couple and Both Of You captions as we see that customers still value close relationships which may not have a traditional label.” Already known for its contemporary colours, Ohh Deer’s joint md Mark Callaby reveals: “What trends are we loving this season? Repeated pattern designs are a hit. Cats remain a consistently strong theme. And classic festive colours of rich reds and deep greens combined with elegant gold foil continue to resonate with shoppers, giving everything a timeless festive feel.” Ohh Deer is offerring a bigger selection from licences such as Cath Kidson, Laura Ashley and V&A along with in-house ranges like The Natural World, Ken The Cat and Icons, and Mark laughed: “We’re including a Bruce Willis card because according to Harry Ferrin, our sales manager, Die Hard is the best Christmas film – other recollections may vary!” So, it seems that Christmas traditions from festive films to card designs are up for new sequels. Is it a case of ‘where there’s a Will(is), there’s a way?’
Right: Noel Tatt has updated captions. Below: New products and 3D cards by Ohh Deer.
Cards For Good Causes does exactly what it says in the name, selling greeting cards to raise money for more than 80 organisations including Shelter, Cancer Research, WWF, and Alzheimer’s Society, and 40 local communities. Festive pop-up shops open in lots of different places around the UK, such as churches, tourist information offices, libraries, town halls, and empty retail units, supporting both the charities as well as the community spaces through the sale of cards, advents, decorations, gift wrap and festive gifts. And 2025 saw Braille printers in some shops for the first time along with the launch of its first Braille card in partnership with RNIB which director of retail Abby Walker said means “everyone can be part of the magic of the season”. PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE 77
Brand new To Be Frank products and more launching at Spring Fair 2026!
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Art Source: Design Predictions
Trend Tracking A reaction to hyper-digital perfection, rebellious pattern clashes, maximalist 80s joy and fierce iconic females, are just some of the trends predicted by some leading artists agents to be reflected in greeting cards over the coming year. PG serves up a feast for the eyes as a trio of experienced aesthetic bellwethers cite what they believe will be the cultural drivers of our creative tastes for 2025 as well as the design trends that will shape our interactions. Left and below: Creative Playground art from Abigail Sammonds (left), Jesuso Ortiz (below) and Alice Mole (bottom), who are part of The Artists Collective.
Soula Zavacopoulos, director of The London Studio (who through its Artists Collective represents a great number of designers and makers for licensing) shares what she feels will be the aesthetic drivers in 2026: “A key driver of our aesthetic tastes in the coming year is the shift we are seeing in consumers’ values, partly driven by the Above: Come rain or shine, Soula Zavacopoulos, director heavily digital age we are in, the influence of The London Studio is there of social media and the growth of AI. for artists. Below: Emotion over AI from In this digital age consumers are Australian artist Susie Esse, (part of The Artists seeking more personal and meaningful Collective). ways of connecting and communicating. There’s a growing reaction against hyper-digital perfection and younger generations have been embracing ‘old school’ aesthetics on social media and viral nostalgia trends have been growing on TikTok and Instagram. There’s a greater leaning towards authenticity over perfection and a counter-response to rapid digitisation and AI design. These shifts and influences are one of several drivers of our aesthetic tastes in the coming year and it is something that many of the independent artists in our Artists Collective have already been exploring in their work.”
of expressing and communicating that they are seeking – cards that are as individual as they are. Experimentation is a feature of this trend, from experimentation with media – such as using spray paint, paper cut, collage and the juxtaposition of 3D and 2D elements – to experimental expression with illustration, such as playing with scale, using bold colour palettes, creating quirky characters and finding more personal and individual ways of connection through contemporary sentiment and captions.”
Maximalism Creative Playground “One of the artistic trends born from this, is what our in-house illustrator Jaimee has named Creative Playground. It's a trend that embraces all that is weird and wonderful. It features quirky and characterful designs with a human, handmade feel – a counter-response to rapid digitisation and AI design. There is a focus on self-expression, relating to designs that are unconventional and unique – helping to give consumers the more personal way
“This is another trend we think will grow as a reaction against hyperdigital perfection and a quest for more personal self-expression. As consumers strive to find ways to express their individuality and uniqueness, we see the growth of ‘dopamine décor and dressing’ trending on social media, enabling consumers to express their individuality and rebel against the norm. This translates onto card design as pattern clashing and vibrant colourways which break the rules. It may include modular patterns, graphic layered frames and energetic hand-drawn text. Or layered pattern and maximalist illustration which pushes back against the clean, quiet luxury minimalism of recent times. Rebellious clashing is the name of game, so you may see circus style patterns like harlequin diamonds, checkerboard and carnival
PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE 79
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you cute characters and icons that appeal to kids, teens and millennials alike. It also plays beautifully into humour cards, friendship cards and cute celebration ranges. The inspiration for this trend stems from the rise of kawaii culture in Western fashion and lifestyle. And we feel it will further escalate in popularity as consumers lean towards comfort-seeking visuals during stressful social climates.” www.thelondonstudio.com Below: Some kawaii cuteness from Natalie Mifkins, Nicola Watson and Studio Mads, who are part of The Artists Collective. Above and left: Maximalism mayhem from Emmy Lupin, Nicc Nicola Cowdery and Gabi Maksimov, who are part of The Artists Collective.
stripes, which each create maximum impact, yet with nostalgic nods – as nostalgia is something consumers are drawn to in uncertain times.”
Grown-up Kawaii “At The London Studio we create in-depth trend guides which we send to our Artists Collective members and one of the trends recently included that Jo, our licensing manager, has predicted for next year is one she’s named Grown-up Kawaii. It’s joyful, commercial and instantly ‘gifty’. This trend gives
Left: Designs by Amanda Ruiz Alba and Sophia Touliatou (who are represented by Advocate Art) which hark back to the 80s. Below: Positive messaging from Ashley Le Quere and Felicity French (who are represented by Advocate Art).
Deborah Millinship, artist agent for Advocate Art highlights what she believes are driving tastes:
Above: Advocate’s Debs Millinship.
“The demand for highly detailed, hand-drawn artwork will be paramount for 2026/2027, serving as a direct consumer counter-trend to AIgenerated visuals. This pursuit of authenticity is fused with a celebration of the global community, where a mix of cultural icons and patterns create a comforting sense of belonging and coming together. For seasonal markets, this translates into strong nostalgia, utilising vintage icons and warm palettes to reflect on home comforts and cherished memories of time gone by.” Anticipating the trends that will shape our interactions, Deb's trio of design predictions for 2026/2027 include…
Purposeful Connection “Captions will prioritise meaningful, positive messaging to sincerely foster human connection and build stronger, more authentic communities.”
Vintage Botanicals “Artworks with a vintage botanical flavour offer a sophisticated, timeless elegance to modern lifestyle and homeware products.” www.advocate-art.com
Maximalist 80s Joy “A reflection back to the fun 1980s; bright and clashing colours reflected in fun patterns playful and dynamic icons.” Above left: These designs by Catherine Worsley and Lara Skinner depict the nostalgic feeling and vintage icon Christmas. (Represented by Advocate Art)
Left: Designs by and Victoria Nelson Amanda Ruiz Alba (who are represented by Advocate Art) that reflect the Vintage Botanicals trend.
PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE 81
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Adele West, UK sales manager of Bridgeman Images shares what she feels will be the aesthetic drivers in the coming year: “When we talk about trends in the greeting card industry, it’s rarely about sudden shifts. Aesthetic tastes tend to evolve in response to how people are feeling and what they value. Looking ahead, a few clear drivers are shaping design choices across the sector. One of the strongest influences is a renewed appreciation for tradition and reassurance. In uncertain times, consumers gravitate towards imagery that feels timeless, familiar and emotionally engaging. Greeting cards are closely tied to ritual, whether birthdays, celebrations or moments of support, and traditional aesthetics continue to provide comfort and continuity. Alongside this is a growing appetite for quality and quiet luxury. Rather than bold novelty, consumers are increasingly drawn to cards that feel considered and wellcrafted. Premium finishes, confident artwork and thoughtful design elevate the card into something giftTop: Arten Gill Viaduct by John Cooke/Private Collection/ © John Cooke. All Rights Reserved worthy, reinforcing its 2025/Bridgeman Images. Middle: Interior with Open Windows, 1928 (oil on emotional value. canvas) by Raoul Dufy/Private Collection/ Bridgeman Another important Images. Bottom: Picking Wild Flowers (oil on canvas) by driver is the rising Dorothea Sharp/Private Collection/ Bridgeman Images. awareness of image provenance. With the growth of AI there is renewed respect for artwork that has a clear sense of authorship and heritage. Designs rooted in real artistic practice feel more authentic and, importantly for publishers and retailers, more valuable.” Against this backdrop, Adele highlights three clear emerging design and artistic trends.
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Expressive Lines and Calligraphy “Bold yet simple imagery, where line and shape take centre stage, is gaining momentum. This aligns perfectly with the arrival of artists such as Henri Matisse into Above: The Dance (II), 1910 (oil on canvas) by Henri the public domain. Matisse/State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia/© Succession H. Matisse/Bridgeman Images. His late works, with their fluid lines and confident forms, feel both contemporary and timeless, translating beautifully onto greeting cards.
Fierce Iconic Female Narratives “There is strong demand for imagery that celebrates individuality and strength, particularly through female artists and subjects. The entry of Frida Kahlo into the public domain is especially Above: Electric Dreams, 2018 (oil on canvas) by Barbara Hoogeweegen/Private Collection/© Barbara significant. Her Hoogeweegen. All rights reserved 2025/Bridgeman powerful visual Images. language and unapologetic self-representation resonate with today’s audiences and work well for statement-led designs.”
Classic Cultural Confidence “Rather than chasing novelty, many designers are turning to recognised artworks and historic references. Using fine art imagery is no longer conservative; it’s a confident, premium choice that signals taste and cultural awareness.” Each January Bridgeman Images launches its new list of artists entering the public domain for 2026 (being out of copyright), creating new creative possibilities for publishers and designers. As Adele adds: “Greeting cards remain deeply personal, and the art on the front makes a statement about both giver and recipient as purveyors of culture. As tastes evolve, imagery rooted in tradition, quality and artistic heritage continues to play a vital role in meaningful card design.” Right: Two Women Sitting in a Garden, 1933 (w/c on paper) by Eric Ravilious/Fry Art Gallery/© Fry Art Gallery Society/Bridgeman Images.
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If you are an artist, photographer or verse writer and would like to be considered to appear in Art Source, please contact PG’s Jakki Brown on jakkib@max-publishing.co.uk. This is an editorial feature and as such is free of charge. PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE 83
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PG ASKED A TRIO OF RETAILERS FOR THEIR BEST SELLERS Liz Killick, co-owner of Calladoodles, Carshalton This year marks the 15th anniversary of the well-loved card and gift shop run by Liz and her daughter Clare White.
Category
Name of Publisher
Product/Name Range
Comments
Everyday
Louise Mulgrew Western Sketch
General General
Sarah Kelleher
Rosie Made A Thing
Botanical Golds, Summer Florals, Winter Florals Gin & Frolics
“Hugely successful, delightful designs.” “A new discovery, delicately coloured and gently witty, good enough to eat!” “Customers love these luscious blooms.”
Cath Tate Cards
General
Relations & Occasions
Belly Button Designs The Art File
General General
Right: Sarah Kelleher’s luscious blooms.
Lola Design
General
Humour
Running with Scissors, Bewilderbeest Studio Boketto Heyyy Cards
General
“All finds from PG Live visits. Happy, individual designs that help us stand out as the place to go for that different card. All super people to know, and to do business with!”
Children’s
Rachel Ellen Designs Heyyy Cards
General Taking Shape
“Huge choice of colourful budget-friendly cards.” “Just love their cut-out ranges.”
Adult Ages
Pigment
General
Woodmansterne
Emma Bridgewater Quentin Blake
“Reliable and often funny but nothing to scare the horses.” “Both collections have great designs.”
Art
Museums & Galleries
General
“A wealth of art… Ancient, classical and modern. Sumptuous!”
3D/Pop-Ups
Paper D’Art The Art File
Me & McQ Form
“The Christmas ranges of the intricate Paper D'Art cards and the more clean-cut designs from The Art File have wide appeal.”
Gift Wrappings
Glick Museums & Galleries Studio Boketto
General General Flat Wrap
“It's Glick for everyday, for a more luxe look M&G or The Art File. Our best flat wrap by a mile is the ever-wonderful Studio Boketto's fabulous Full English design!”
Gifts
Wild Ethos St Eval Ziggle
Candles
“Beautifully stylish and smell wonderful.”
Baby clothes & accessories Chocolate
“Very popular and well priced.”
Right: Western Sketch is good enough to eat.
Right: Heyyy Cards’ die-cut designs.
Arthouse Unlimited Right: Tasty wrap by Studio Boketto.
Interestingly Different Namaste Jess & Lou
Handmade jams & chutneys General Socks, hats, jewellery
“Non-sweary and amusingly on point for so many of our customers.” “Reliable but also constantly updating in style.” “Excellent for the big occasions.” “Always plenty of choice, consistent quality of design and finish.” “Just so pretty!”
“Gorgeously wrapped – it’s a pleasure to support this enterprise.” “Delicious – all regularly taste-tested by us! From a local, social organisation” “Ethically traded, colourful and well-priced” “The best, and comfiest, and a growing collection of affordable jewellery.” PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE 85
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Sally Swift, owner of Cards & Moor, Yelverton to her home county of Devon for the quiet life, Sally opened this card and gift shop a InternationalReturning Focus few years ago and has since found herself busier than ever! Category
Name of Publisher
Product/Name Range
Comments
Everyday
Canns Down Press
General
“Contemporary art cards that just work for everyday sends.”
Relations & Occasions
Wendy Jones-Blackett
A Fine Line
“Elegant and simple designs.”
Humour
Emotional Rescue
Paper Salad collabs
“The customers love the naughtiness of these cards, we often hear them giggling away!”
Children’s
Belly Button Designs
Wonderful World
“Excellent price point for a detailed and fun design.”
Adult Ages
Stop The Clock
General
“New to us and being enjoyed by our regulars.”
Art
Anna Wright
General
“Beautiful drawings with that little bit of humour.”
Cute
Two Bad Mice
General
“Reliably loveable!”
Photographic
The Eco-friendly Card Co.
The Wildlife Trust
“Excellent wildlife photos.”
3D/Pop-Ups
Paper D’Art
Me & McQ
“The customers love these, with the delicate, intricate 3D designs.”
Gift Wrappings
Deva Designs
General
“Great quality and lovely satin ribbons.”
Gifts
Belly Button Designs
Ceramic Slim Pocket Hugs
“Who wouldn't want a pocket hug? And easy to slip inside a card for that extra thoughtfulness.”
Right: Belly Button’s Wonderful World.
Right: Anna Wright’s artwork.
Right: Cuteness from Two Bad Mice.
Rachael Fletcher, owner of Fletcher & Hughes, Horncastle A long-established card and gift shop that’s at the heart of the community in a Lincolnshire market town. Category
Name of Publisher
Product/Name Range
Comments
Everyday
Words ’N’ Wishes
General
“Sells brilliantly. It's the full package - the artwork, the wording, presentation just stunning.”
Relations & Occasions
Words ’N’ Wishes
Right: Carnival from Words ’N’ Wishes.
Jonny Javelin
Carnival Moments In Time Blossom
IC&G Second Nature
General Handmade
“These are beautiful. Lovely cards for husband and wife.” “We stock lots of JJ ranges and this is a very good seller.” “The quality is lovely.” “For weddings these are very popular.”
Danilo Emotional Rescue Woodmansterne Original Poster Company
Only Fools and Horses Sorted Mungo & Shoddy Animal Magic
“One of our best – great play on words.” “These are really brilliant.” “A funny range.” “Perhaps our best seller. Good light-hearted humour, and the price point is brilliant.”
Children’s
Woodmansterne Second Nature
Quentin Blake Yours Truly
“Very popular.” “The £1.50 price point is brilliant.”
Adult Ages
UK Greetings
Licensed ranges
“These do well, people come in having been told to get a certain character.”
Art
Danilo
“These are very popular with the 60s, 70s and 80s, because it's their era.”
Woodmansterne Original Poster Company
Dad’s Army Only Fools And Horses Victoria Ball Blank cards
Glick
General
“These are our mainstay, and fantastic. Customers appreciate the quality.”
Humour
Right: Danilo’s Only Fools and Horses range.
Right: Wrendale’s plush is great quality.
Gift Wrappings
PROGRESSIVEGREETINGS GREETINGSWORLDWIDE WORLDWIDE 86 22 PROGRESSIVE
“This is going well.” “We have a spinner of these blanks and oh my God! Do they sell! The images are beautiful and great for any occasion.”
PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE 21
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PRODUCT DIRECTORY
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Greetings Cards Plush & Giftware Gi G ft Dressings & Wrrap Gift
To appear in the Product Directories contact
Warren Lomax T: 020 7700 6740 email warren@max-publishing.co.uk By
or contact
Tracey Arnaud T: 07957 212 062 email traceya@max-publishing.co.uk
®
Also acting as the exclusive UK distributor fo forr Bl Blue Mountain M t i A Ar ts t
Order s can be placed on our tradeer site
www.cbgtrader w. r..co.uk or call our customer ser vices team m on
+44(0)1243 792600
PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE 87
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PRODUCT DIRECTORY
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Enquiries: warren@max-publishing.co.uk
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or Tracey Arnaud traceya@max-publishing.co.uk
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CHARITY GREETING CARDS One of the UK’s leading publishers of Charity Greeting Cards. Impress offers a wide collection of images, including fine art, graphic, photographic and cute. We also offer a bespoke design service for bulk orders and/or mail order fulfilment.
Ch C hin nese ese HE IS
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from the
Impress Publishing Appledown House Barton Business Park New Dover Road Canterbury, Kent CT1 3TE Tel: 01227 811 611 Fax: 01227 811 618 email: info@impresspublishing.co.uk
Including firm favourites and brand new designs
Polissh Po h
Te T el: 0161 1 64 641 0 06 655 Email: m sales@daav sales@d avora.co.uk
Brands include: Keepsakes, Words of Love, Jelly Beans, Bella Rose, Champagne and many more
135 Hea 13 135 eaton Moorr Rd | Stockp ock kpor port ort SK4 4HY 4 4H HY
To appear in the Product Directories contact Warren Lomax T: 020 7700 6740 warren@max-publishing.co.uk or contact Tracey Arnaud T: 07957 212 062 traceya@max-publishing.co.uk
Award winning designers and manufacturers of luxury gift wrappings and accessories
Tel: +44 (0)115 986 0115 customerservices@paperrose.co.uk www.writefromtheheart.co.uk
Quality & Seerr vice you y can depe de pen ndd on
01274 655980 sales@glick.co.uk glick.co.uk trade.glick.co.uk @glickgiftwrap
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To appear in the Product Directories contact Warren Lomax T: 020 7700 6740 warren@max-publishing.co.uk or contact Tracey Arnaud T: 07957 212 062 traceya@max-publishing.co.uk
88 PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE
Web bs store e: trade de.hallma a a .co.uk ark. u UK:: 0800 U 80 8 00 9 90 02 0 0900 9 0 RO 18 RO ROI: 11800 00 81 00 8 81687 8168 1 872 Ema Email: m ill: cus c usttomer omerqu queriesUK@hall eri e ries sU UK K@ @hal alllmar ma m ark. k co k.c om m
THE GREA AT TEST COLLECTION OF GREETING CARDS IN THE WORLD
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PRODUCT DIRECTORY
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l PRODUCT DIRECTORY
Send Love ( ll year round) (al d)
paperbirdpu blishing.co.uk
Great brands, Great service Bespoke planning We can help with all your planning requirements. From smaller displays to redeveloping complete card departments
@NoelTattGroup 01227 811 600 sales@noeltatt.co.uk www.noeltatt.co.uk
CARDS THA T MAKE Y OU FEEL
T HIS H HAPPPY
020 7582 8244 info@paperlink.co.uk p a p e r l i n kc a rd s www.paperlink.co.uk
info@papersheddesign.com www.papersheddesign.com tel: 0118 9744283
To appear in the Product Directories contact Warren Lomax T: 020 7700 6740 email: warren@max-publishing.co.uk
Te l : + 4 4 ( 0 ) 1 1 5 9 8 6 0 1 1 5 customer ser vices@paper rose .co.uk
or contact Tracey Arnaud T: 07957 212 062 email: traceya@max-publishing.co.uk
w w w. p a p e r r o s e . c o . u k
PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE 89
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PRODUCT DIRECTORY
l PRODUCT DIRECTORY
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Market Leaders in
Verse &
6 Heron Trading Estate Alliance Road, Park Royal, London W3 0RA T: 0208 385 4474 F: 0208 385 4471 E: info@Xpressyourselfcards.co.uk
entimen
WWW.XXPRESSYOURSELFCARDS.CO.UK
an extensive range of superior quality,
PRODUCTS: World’s leading publisher of high quality plastic greeting cards. Also an extensive range of quality greeting cards covering Everyday, Occasions, Christmas and Spring seasons.
design-led Greeting Cards
BRANDS: Cherished Thoughts, Sweet Sentiments, Buddies Always, Symphony, Thinking of You, Style, Special Wishes, Special Times, Young Editions, Groove Sensations, Forever Blessed, Grey Skies, Classics.
for all occasions, Spring Seasons & Christmas.
METHOD OF SALE: SENSATIONS – Direct to retail XPRESS YOURSELF – Now one of the leading wholesale publisher suppliers in the UK
Method of Sale: Direct to Retail Orders can be placed on our trader site
www.cbgtrader.co.uk or call our customer services team on
+44(0)1243 792600
We offffer a COMPREHEN
range of high Greeting Cards f ALL Occasions,
THE GREA AT TEST COLLECTION OF GREETING CARDS IN THE WORLD
CHRISTMAS an Season f Sale:
mail: inffoo@words-nWeb: www We w..words-n-wishes.co.uk
Tel: 01942 233201
90 PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE
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DIRECTORY OF WHOLESALE l DIRECTORY OF WHOLESALE
EUROPE’S LEADING GREETINGS CARDS, PARTY PRODUCTS, GIFTS, CANDLES, TOYS, STATIONERY AND FLORIST SUNDRIES DISTRIBUTION CENTRE 75000 SQ FT BESCOT CRESCENT, WALSALL, WEST MIDLANDS. WS1 4NG 01922-646666 www.greetingshouse.co.uk info@greetingshouse.co.uk MON,WED,FRI 8.00am-4.45pm TUES,THURS 8.00am-7.45pm SAT,SUN 8.00am-1.45pm
BAGS
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BAGS
Polypropylene & biodegradable bag specialists
GREETING CARD
ĎĶġƕbĄËƅ|İĎĞƕ|âĎĞ ʼnū͗ƤưŶƜĠ͗ŶƜ͗ŶūŠʼnūĠ͗òư İæÛËġÚËËİŰ¾Ďă Over 40 years quality service to the trade Hotfoiling also available
T 01206 396209 E sales@badgerconverters.co.uk www.badgerconverters.co.uk
BAGS
Manufacturers of 30% recycled content packag ging
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www.transrappackag ging.co.uk sales@transrap.cco.uk CALL US TODA AY
01773 537 7810
30 YEARS EXPERIENCE - QUA ALITY SERVICE EXTENSIVE STOCK RANGE - QUICK K DELIVERY Y ASSURED
PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE 91
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We’ve been producing p bags of high clarity and high q quality for over 30 years. 01274 220 220 www w.wrapid.co.uk sales@wrapid.co.uk
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Hello Cards are FSC approved digital printers, offering high quality print at competitive prices, working with both large and small publishers. Contact us to discuss your requirements.
W W W. EN VE CO .CO .U K
01 90 83 78 86 6
ENVELOPES
IN FO @E NV EC O. CO .U K
‘we we make Envelopes and Stationery’
MOREE THAN 50 COLOURS 6 POPULAR GREEETINGS CARD SIZES 50+ WH HITE SIZES IN STOCK BESPOKE ENV VELOPES AV AVAILABLE PEEL A AND SEAL CLOSURE RECYCLED / KRAFTT / 140GSM / 120GSM 11 SUPER BRIG GHT NEON COLOURS BESPOKE NOTEBO OOKS & STATIONERY
PLEASE GET IN TOUCH FOR YOUR COMPLIMENTA TARY RY ENVELOPE OR NOTEBOOK SWA WATCH PA PACK
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Additional Services • Foiling with no dies • Inhouse fulfilment
• Distribution • Wiro Bound Notebooks
T 01274 305832 E info@hellocards.co.uk
www.hellocards.co.uk
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THE SPECIALIST GREETINGS CARD PRINTER
Manuffa acturers off high quality envelopes 10 popular greetings card sizes in stock recycled & kraft envelopes in stock
Litho Print
Die-cutting
Digital Print
Packing
Foiling
Distribution
Embossing
CNC Die-making
Tel:01274531828 Email: info@herbertwalkers.co.uk
RECYCLED PA P APER
www.herbertwalkers.co.uk
CALL US TODAY
01773 537810
www.transrappackaging.co.uk sales@transrap.co.uk
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92 PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE
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94 PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE
FREE WAREHOUSING FREE STORAGE FREE CONTAINER UNLOADING
SPECIALIST SERVICES FOR THE GREETINGS / GIFTWARE WORLD
FREE STOCK MANAGEMENT FREE HELP & ADVICE
Pick it, pack it & off it goes! Hence the name!
Hand Finishing
Tel – 01255 318936
Fast, Efficient service & all you pay is a commission.
Pick / Packing
Mobile-07904 985797
Whatever you have to pack & distribute our team will make it look perfect for the recipient ensuring the B2B or B2C client receives only the best representation of your company!
Help with growth & Sales
Email- ppgessex1@gmail.com
Wrapping / Banding
www.picpacgo.co.uk
Same Day Despatch
Contact – James or Bayleigh
Eco green packers
A family run business
We are so much more then just a 3rd party warehouse, we also help our clients with sourcing and advice on products as well as even organising print runs. Please feel free to contact us for any requirements you may have from a helping hand with your current warehouse to the full package.
APPOINTMENTS •
APPOINTMENTS • APPOINTMENTS • APPOINTMENTS BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT AND ACCOUNT MANAGER
Location: London ★ Hours: Full time ★ Salary: D.O.E Job Overview:
We are looking for a talented and highly motivated Business Development and Account Manager to join our dynamic and growing team at Cath Tate. The Account Manager will be responsible for managing and nurturing key customer relationships; building relationships with new clients; driving sales and brand growth. You will have... ★ A proven track record of successfully managing large accounts and achieving sales targets. ★ At least three years’ experience in a similar role in the greeting card industry and or gift industry, selling B2B. ★ Exceptional communication and negotiation skills with the ability to build lasting relationships with customers and internal teams. ★ An understanding of how ‘on the road’ sales teams work ★ Excellent organisational and time management skills, with the ability to manage multiple accounts and projects simultaneously. ★ Experience working at trade shows ★ A creative mindset with a keen eye for design trends in greeting cards. ★ Finally - a sense of humour is vital! As a team we work hard but don’t take ourselves too seriously!
More about us!
★ Cath Tate is a Greetings Card publishers based in the creative hub of Deptford/New Cross powered by a small team of creative women. For over 40 years, we’ve been producing and licensing award-winning greeting cards and gifts that bring laughter and connection to people all around the world. ★ From our South London base, we’re honoured to supply independent shops and chains across the globe. Seeing our cards on shelves gives us a thrill—and it’s the reason we love what we do.
How to apply: For a more detailed job spec visit our website cathtatecards.com/pages/work-with-us Email your CV and cover letter to jobs@cathtatcards.com
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