Indie Miles Robinson gives the lowdown on current Christmas sales
There’s some mixed tingles going on at House of Cards as the seven-strong Home Counties retail chain revs up its Christmas sales.
The greetings sector is reliant on a decent festive trade, and indies in particular pull out all the stops to remind everyone how important it is to send seasonal cards and keep that personal connection at this special time of year.
Checking in with members of The Cardmitments independent retailers’ group, PG has the lowdown this time around from Miles Robinson, co-owner of House of Cards…
Christmas Hunch: “My gut feeling for Christmas is that it will be an OK one and probably a little better than last year due to price increases and cost-of-living pressures easing. We’ve had some good early sales, but it’s a bit mixed and, as ever, the weather and Royal Mail will play a big part.
“Last posting dates are not brilliant this year, but that reflects where RM is with its business. I feel it will be last minute as usual, meaning there will be limited time to react to top sellers so, for us, it will be key to try to have the right stock in the right place!”
Playing Your Cards: “Single cards will be the star again as boxes will come under pressure again no doubt, partly in reaction to Royal Mail stamp price increases – even though second class is still only 85p, the damage is done.
“I think charity packs will hold up well and we’ll see moderate increases, especially as pack sizes are more relevant to a lot of today’s Christmas card-buying consumers.
“Traditional always wins at Christmas, there are some beautiful designs this year with rich greens defo on trend – The Art File luxury boxes are stunning! Humour has been very strong in the past few years and we see this continuing this year.
“We’ve displayed some lines a little earlier this year mainly due to consumer demand, but it also spreads out the influx of stock deliveries.
“We ran our Festive Friday Friends & Family evening as we did last year and are expanding this with another exclusive evening just for local traders – both with wine! We have various other initiatives running for our branch teams such as window display competitions, Christmas jumper day, highest sale, upselling etc.”
These views appear in the November issue of Progressive Greetings which can be read online, and any indie retailer who wants to join the Cardmitments WhatsApp group should email Heidi Early heidi@earlybirddesigns.co.uk.
