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NEWS TOP STORY
Retailers open new stores
Who’s The Daddy? The pitter pater was not as strong as some would have liked Father’s Day this year had to fight its corner – falling as it did among the political turmoil of DUP and Brexit negotiations and in the hottest week of the year. Weakening consumer confidence, coupled with macroeconomic uncertainty is thought to have had a knock-on effect on Father’s Day spend on gifts and cards. Hazel Walker, card buyer of Paperchase, revealed that while “sales started off well”, notably with some of the pun-based humour lines, she elaborated that “the final few weeks were harder due to footfall and weather. That said, we did see decent growth in the final week.” The unseasonal hot weather also played havoc with John Lewis’ Father’s Day card sales, with the department store group finishing down on last year’s figures, but “pleased with our result on Father's Day as we know that the high street had a tough time overall in this category,” according to Amie Scull, assistant buyer for stationery, giftwrap and seasonal events. She felt that the hot weather meant that supermarkets benefitted as “customers shopping in supermarkets for their BBQ food picked up their Father's Day card at the same time.” It was once again a big last minute surge for JLP. “26% of our trade came in the last three days before the event. Out of nine weeks on sale, that is a significant peak.” Sainsbury’s admitted that it did indeed benefit from the hot weather and last minute buying, with Carly Pearson, senior buyer of cards and wrap commenting: “Father’s Day was a very back-ended event for us with the weather having an impact.
Above: Father’s Day promo in the window of Paperchase. Below: Humorous Father’s Day cards were the winners again for Creased Cards.
Sales were in-line with our expectations and we saw a shift with more customers shopping in convenience stores as a result of the nice weather.” However, the final Spring Season event, if not a scorcher, was not by any means a disaster. Mark Janson-Smith, director of four Postmark shops in London noted: "Sell through rates were good this year, in fact almost identical to last year, with strong sales in the week leading up to the big day. We saw a return of multiple sales with customers buying two, three and even four Father's Day cards." Business was also good for Paul Jarman, owner of Creased Cards in Brighton, who “did pretty well, again with a slightly extended range. Preliminary figures look like Father’s Day was broadly similar to last year, humour cards once again won the day with the greatest share of designs.” Humour was also a winner for Chris Beards, owner of Mantons Cards, Port Erin, Isle of Man. “The amount of humour cards we sell has increased. Being a greeting card specialist we have the room for the more niche titles and that helps give us an edge on the supermarkets.”
UKG’s digital dads’ day A YouTube video commissioned by UKG to promote Father’s Day was viewed over 43,000 times over the Father’s Day weekend. The quirky cute video showing children pranking their dads, creating ‘masterpieces’ of their fathers, was commissioned by UKG to prompt card sending generally, rather than the publisher itself. Its aim was to put a smile on people’s faces, drive engagement within the category and hopefully boost sales for retailers. Above: UKG’s YouTube video highlighted the feel-good emotions around greeting cards. “There are 1.5 billion dads worldwide and we wanted to bring everyone’s attention to how great they are and to encourage people to celebrate Father’s Day,” says Ceri Stirland, director of marketing at UKG. “We know that Father’s Day spend (not just on cards) is dwarfed by Mother’s Day – we spend twice as much on Mother’s Day than we do on Father’s Day. We thought a little fun video would be a really nice way to get the occasion on everyone’s radar and celebrate dads.”
There’s no doubt about the challenges facing retailers from the political and economic situation at the moment, but that hasn’t stopped plucky indie retailers from expanding their presence on the high street. l 3 Wishes opened a new specialist card shop recently in Broadstone (see below), a suburb of Poole in Dorset, thereby adding a fifth store to this successful southern regional specialist group owned by Sarah and Paul Henderson. Sarah admits that she realised she “had the bug” to expand when they missed out on buying one of M&P’s Occasions stores when it was taken over by Paul Taylor, owner of Cardzone. l Meanwhile, a few days later, Louise Helyer, owner of Forget Me Not in Stubbington Green, opened Lulu Loves, a stunning homewares boutique, which includes a selection of cards, in the
vicinity of its long established card, gift and haberdashery store. Lulu Loves is the culmination of an idea that Louise has been nurturing for almost four years. l A move to larger premises this summer is on the cards for Paul Jarman, owner of Creased Cards in Brighton. The move will allow Paul to carry nearly three times as many card designs and gives the space to diversify the product types he stocks. “We’re delighted to have secured new and much larger premises in Brighton,” says Paul. He plans to have five stores over the next three years.
Clintons’ Father’s Day PR Clintons pushed out the positive PR bandwagon for Father’s Day highlighting the changing face of Father’s Day cards, and on the wide range of captions for Father’s Day cards now available. Tim Fairs, director of marketing and ecommerce at Clintons, said: “The vast majority of Father’s Day cards that we offer are traditional and there are currently around 900 Father’s Day options in our range. Recently we’ve been asked by customers whether it's time to cater for a wider range of family circumstances. Our ‘Happy Father’s Day Mum’ card is just one of many examples of new cards that we brought to our range.” Above: Clintons’ range includes captions for all father figures.
PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE
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