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OVER THE COUNTER
Decisions, Decisions Independent card and gift retailer, David Robertson, co-owner of JP Pozzi in Scotland, shares some of his PG Live greeting card discoveries and warns of the fatigue of constant decision-making. Wednesday 6 June 2018 - Second Day of PG Live... after the show I headed to Heathrow for a 9pm flight home. As is always the case when you have plenty of time the tube/train/walk combination from the show went without a hitch so I arrived early. Add on over an hour flight delay and I was facing the prospect of five hours at the airport. This allowed me to do one of a few things - catch up on emails; call people that I had missed over the last couple of days; work on my new project for Cardzone; or switch off and read for a couple of hours. Four choices too many! In truth I did none of the above. I had restless legs and walked/prowled the terminal trying to not buy something I definitely didn’t need. The other reason for my restlessness was the many discussions I had had at PG Live about business and where we all see it going. Quite literally, a slew of questions were buzzing around my mind. This topic of industry worries seemed to be a bit of a theme and it appears that everyone is sharing the same buzzing. There were of course the exceptions to the rule, but on the whole everyone from London to Scotland were saying that it was tough. They were saying it was challenging and the most common complaint was footfall. Now this is a well-worn path. I have covered it in this column many times in the past few years, but somehow or another it feels even more uncertain now. It feels even more real. As I write this, Poundland is about to close its doors, Marks & Spencer is closing stores, House Of Fraser is basically cutting itself in half, shop wise, and indie retailers are a bit unsure as to where to position themselves. Be too niche and the audience 26
PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE
Above: David walking the show aisles at PG Live 2018. Below: Delicate and pretty cards from Amy Louise Design.
is small, too mainstream and you are the same as everyone else, go value and you can’t compete. Our high streets are changing. Having been in major city centres, such as Manchester and Edinburgh, in last few weeks I see little sign of innovation on the high street. The closing, cutting and removal of staple stores and banks is leaving us all with some deep thoughts about the future. I also see a lack of innovation in gift products, as companies, understandably, are chasing safe options. Gin, prosecco, llamas and unicorns have all had better coverage than Donald Trump, with the result that a great deal of the gift stores take on the same look. This is of course a vicious circle, as companies are understandably hesitant to
plough resources into new and different things for fear that they do not sell. Greeting cards are perhaps the exception. There are still indies out there trying to be different and there are still publishers out there trying to fill every niche. PG Live, once again, highlighted that there really is a card for every taste. In terms of buying at PG Live, it is always very frustrating for me as I have to have my commercial head on and buy what I know will sell and what my customers like, as to opposed to what excites me. With that the case, Wendy Jones-Blackett, Five Dollar, Hearts Designs, White Cotton, Hammond Gower are all staples with me. But I am adding or going to add the following new companies in the near future: Amy Louise - Very pretty, delicate designs in pastel shades with good captions. Stormy Knight - Loved the ‘Good as Gold’ collection and I bought across all the ranges. I also liked the thought that had been put in the concertina style cards – the packaging made it very simple for the customer to see what they were getting. Tigerlily - These cards are very hipster but I loved the female/male characters, and again the cards had all the right captions for me. Alex Clark - Its Coastal cards - in two sizes - feature seaside images with gentle humour that are ideal if you are near the sea! There are of course many, many more ranges that I liked but they would not work for me as they are just not for my customer base: