73_75_Inustry Issue.qxp_Grid 20/08/2025 18:28 Page 1
INDUSTRY ISSUE
INDIE IDEAS IN ACTION
Having great ideas is one thing, putting them into action is quite another, and sharing them with others so they too can benefit takes it up another notch. The recent GCA/PG Retailer Forum, which took place straight after The Henries live judging, scored highly on all three counts. PG was all ears as indies spread the joy with paper bags, shared initiatives and instigated a youth TikTok group to boost Gen Z’s card sending. “At this very meeting last year, Red Card’s Sally Matson had the wonderful idea of printing paper bags with a Cards Make People Happy message on, and we've now got them produced, complete with a #Cardmitment logo. They are going down brilliantly,” enthused Kaye Thurgood, owner of Sincerely Yours in Hornchurch and Shenfield holding up examples of the paper bags that are now available for indies. “The idea is to for all of us retailers to hand these bags out when a customer buys a greeting card; reminding people that it's a joyous experience to send and receive cards.” With UK Greetings getting behind production, Raspberry Blossom’s design, and a decision to keep costs down by printing just using black ink, the bags are
Above: The GCA’s ceo Amanda Fergusson kicking off the GCA/PG Retailer Forum meeting. Right: Sincerely Yours’ Kaye Thurgood (left) and Red Card’s Sally Matson. Below right: One of the new paper bags. Below left: Earlybird’s Heidi Early (right) with the winner and the winning design of last year’s Happy Card project.
available at the low cost of £20 for 1,000 – a “no brainer” laughed Kaye – available through suppliers UKG, Ling Design, GBCC, Abacus, Paper Salad, Pigment, Wendy JonesBlackett and Ohh Deer, or via GBCC’s Faire portal. With this example of successful collective action setting the bar, discussions turned to more ways of putting greeting cards front and centre. With Thinking Of You Week fast approaching (September 15-21) Earlybird scored full marks with its Happy Card Project last year, getting a local school and their young pupils involved in a card
competition to design a happy cards. The 100 entries were displayed in the shop and people popped in to vote for their favourite, with the winning one printed onto cards and sold in the shop with profits going to the child’s chosen charity. As Earlybird’s co-owner Heidi Early explained: “It was such a great project. The school loved it, the kids loved it. It was a really good community thing. Loads of people came to the shop to see the card designs, who probably hadn’t been into the shop before. And it's so special for the child to then have a card that they designed and that it's being sold. It was just lovely.” Rather than keeping the idea – which was a finalist in the Best Retailer Initiative in The Retas – to themselves Heidi has developed an easy ‘how to’ guide for other retailers to instigate a similar project in their vicinity (all PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE 73