22-23_Cardsharp.qxp_Layout 1 06/03/2025 15:18 Page 2
cardsharp Inset: The long established WH Smith name looks likely to disappear from our high streets.
Decline and Fall The recent news of WHSmith putting its high street division up for sale sent Cardsharp’s brain into overdrive. Firstly, what does that mean for bricks and mortar retailing, and more specifically our greeting card sector? And secondly it made him reflect how the mighty has fallen. WHSmith has a long and distinguished tradition. Founded in 1792 it is one of, if not, our oldest retail chain. Cardsharp reminisces that for many Boomers and Gen Xers, WHSmith was a huge part of their teenage years. It is where we all bought our music cassettes, our pop posters, our magazines and our fun stationery for school or college. It was an integral part of our lives. Cardsharp reflects that it is also easy to forget, that it was also absolutely massive in greeting cards. When PG first started publishing in the early 1990s, WHSmith and Woolworths were the two market leaders in greeting cards, the former on everyday while Woolies clinched it on Christmas cards. They comfortably sold more cards than all of the supermarkets combined back then.
22 PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE
WHSmith was also lauded as the ‘mother’ of ‘small house card publishing’ as it was referred to then, most notably it was where the retail christening of Andrew Brownsword’s Forever Friends happened, heralding what was to become one of the industry’s most successful greeting card ranges of all time. WHSmith even owned the Paperchase chain before selling it onto its management (headed up by Timothy Melgund), and a decade ago, tried and failed to launch a standalone budget greeting card specialist chain called Cardmarket in an abortive attempt to take on Card Factory. But since the heydays of the late 80s/early 90s, there has been a long slow steady decline at WHS, characterised by falling sales, and lack of investment. In the last ten years, sales have dropped from £684million to £452million, while trading profits have halved to £32million. And having once been well-loved by the consumer, it regularly appears near the bottom of any league table on retail customer satisfaction. It amuses Cardsharp that there
Above: WHSmith store in Reading, one of its flagships, offers 3,000 everyday card designs to customers. Below left: It had been hoped that bringing Toys R Us concessions into WHSmith stores would have helped to boost sales and footfall.
is even a social media feed, @WHS_Carpet on which members of the public post photos of the tatty and fraying carpets, buckets for leaky roofs and appallingly unkempt shelves in its stores. Cardsharp has lived in a small to mediumsized affluent market town for many years and WHSmith’s store there has never been one of its flagships. In fact, quite the opposite! The window displays are awful, the lights are always switched off to save money and the shop inside an absolute mess. Ironically the only neat instore displays are the greeting card racks, presumably because, with an excellent independent card and gift retailer called Temptations virtually next door, very few people buy their cards there! It is rarely busy and normally the staffing consists of one student or late school age assistant, who rather than being at the tills is physically stocking the shelves. This means every customer whether they like it or not has to resort to self-serving. What is even more irritating is that you can’t get to the pay stage without having to go through the motions of rejecting the request for you to buy a bag, then some water and then a bar of chocolate.