44-45_Petimo article.qxp_Grid 06/05/2025 09:13 Page 1
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MORE THAN MOST
With its Spring Campaign transforming More Than Just a Gift’s quietest month into the best April yet for the Narborough-based card and gift shop, owner Sophie Edwards is now looking to share her experiences and inspirations with other likeminded retailers through a newly launched Smart Shopkeepers’ Club website and community. PG caught up with Sophie in her Narborough Hall base to find out more.
“Historically April has always been our quietest month of the year,” said Sophie Edwards, who together with her husband Simon co-owns the More Than Just a Gift card and gift store (and sibling Petimo card publishing business) located within Narborough Hall in Leicestershire. “We’re not in a tourist area and most of our customers head off on holiday or visit family for Easter. After the buzz of Mother’s Day, we’ve always accepted April as a natural dip in the calendar. But this year, we saw a significant shift.” To quantify the size of that ‘shift’, Sophie revealed that the store’s April sales were up 75% year on year - and that excludes “the Jellycat craziness”. “For a mature and long-established business, this kind of growth is extraordinary,”
highlights Sophie, but she knows the reason for the surge. “There’s no doubt that our Spring Campaign is behind it – it shows that trading can be transformed with the right mix of creativity, storytelling, and intention.” This was the store’s 21st Spring Campaign, but this year’s activities had an extra flourish as Sophie coupled it with a special Female Founders Month focus which ran throughout March shining a spotlight on some of the women’s businesses connected to the store. All of the Mother’s Day cards Sophie stocked this year, for example hailed from female-founded firms, along with 99% of the store’s everyday cards. “Our Spring Celebration event created a genuine sense of occasion, and our Female
Above left: Sophie has 30 years’ experience in indie retail. Below: A strong greeting card selection, which includes Petimo’s own designs, adds to the mix of gifts and jewellery in More Than Just a Gift.
The Building Bricks When Sophie was just a year old, her parents bought Narborough Hall, a beautiful, but derelict old house in a Leicestershire village. Many years on they decided to turn the front rooms into a gallery/shop to help fund the restoration of the house. As a teenager Sophie threw herself into helping her dad build the displays, unpacking and pricing all the stock and chivvying them into finally setting an opening date! She served the customers and stocked the shelves. “Even when I left for university, I stayed involved. My very first letter home was basically a list of instructions for how they should run things without me! Every holiday, I returned to work long hours into the night helping the business,” recalled Sophie.
44 PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE
Sophie met Simon on the first night of Freshers Week at the University of Sheffield – she studied archaeology and prehistory, Simon tackling a law degree. “Retail was nowhere on our radar! Life, though, has a funny way of leading you where you’re meant to be,” accepts Sophie. After graduating, Sophie recognised the shop needed more than love, it needed to turn a proper profit. “So, I gave it a year. Along with Simon, we cleared out slow-moving stock, repainted, redesigned, rebranded, and relaunched. And it worked. We hit break-even, then moved into profit and have kept building from there,” revealed Sophie about her ongoing retailing story. Above left: Narborough Hall is both Sophie’s childhood home, as well as her business home. Far left: A teenage Sophie showing her retailing colours. Left: Sophie, husband Simon and dog Nixie outside More Than Just a Gift.