GCA calls on all members to take part in 2024 Annual Market Report
It’s time to get down with your data as the GCA is keen to hear from all members to compile the association’s Annual Market Report which gives valuable insight into the health of the greetings industry.
“This report enables us all to understand and monitor the changes in our industry, plan product releases and marketing initiatives,” GCA ceo Amanda Fergusson explained. “It’s also vital for communications with customers and other stakeholders such as Royal Mail, mps, Ofcom, investors and the media as we work to protect and promote our industry.”
All association members are asked to help by providing details of 2023 sales which will be collected securely, in complete confidence, by Echo Research, ensuring individual company’s data is not available to the GCA.
The finished report is available free of charge to most members, with last year’s version still available, and can be downloaded by non-members for a fee.
As GCA council member and Cardology co-owner David Falkner explained the reports have “90% of the data directly underpinned” by responses from members and the rest is backed up by publicly-available sources with the association looking back at previous years to resize the market and ensure the year-on-year comparisons are credible.
With the 2023 report covering 2022 sales compared to 2021, and showing the UK greeting card market is worth over £1.45billion per year on single cards alone, the data gives the GCA solid ammunition to battle the current Ofcom and Royal Mail threats to the universal service obligation to deliver letters and cards six days a week.
And the continuing value of the industry to the UK economy means the government listens to the GCA too, with Amanda and council members involved in various high-level meetings.
The current report shows the exceptionally resilient market saw volumes fall by just 2% in 2022 versus 2021, which David said was a “paltry amount” compared to other sectors such as furniture which fell by 24% and outdoor products were down 19.6%.
To ensure the 2024 report, covering sales in 2023 compared to 2022, is as hard-hitting, the GCA need as many members as possible to take part by answering the same questions as in previous years to ensure an effective comparison.
Amanda said Charlotte Gowen from Echo will be emailing all members next week with an invitation to participate and added: “To ensure that this report is as accurate and up to date as possible, and we don’t under-represent the size or health of our industry, it is really important that everybody please contributes their data.”
