Card retailers report festive hopes are realised as inflation drops to two-year low
With inflation dropping to a two-year low, things are looking up on the retail front and the feeling among greeting card stores is of a pretty good festive period.
“Inflation continued to fall as fierce competition between retailers helped hold down prices for consumers,” British Retail Consortium ceo Helena Dickinson said.
“With the eighth consecutive fall in food inflation and continued easing in clothing and footwear inflation, retailers clearly worked hard to deliver an affordable Christmas for households everywhere.”
The rate of inflation just reported by the Office For National Statistics (ONS) fell to 3.9% in November, the lowest level seen in two years, and lower than expected after dropping from 4.6% in October with the biggest driver being a decrease in fuel prices, along with slower rises in food prices and a drop for a range of household goods and the cost of second-hand cars.
While the figures do mean “prices remain substantially above what they were before the invasion of Ukraine,” according to ONS chief economist Grant Fitzner, on the greetings retail front feedback is that hopes for Christmas 2023 have been largely realised, and recovered well from the disaster of a year previous caused by the postal strikes.
“Brilliant – beyond expectations,” was John Procter’s verdict on Christmas as the co-founder of Scribbler reported “really strong sales that were even better than pre-Covid…all back to full strength”.
John added that Scribbler’s strategy of not discounting any cards or gifts pre-Christmas paid off, and said: “Our pack sales were fantastic as were singles with more generic captions, such as ‘our house to your house’ and ‘special friend’.”
“Bring it on 2024 – we’re ready for you!” is Jo Sorrell’s challenge to the new year as she celebrated trade being “slightly up” over 2022 at her well-known dog-friendly store Cardies in Stevenage, and that many customers “appreciate the service, the selection and the connection of the independent with their community”.
And it’s good news too from the UK’s largest greeting card retailer where Adam Dury, coo of Cardfactory, was pleased with the company’s fully integrated marketing campaign and first-ever nationwide radio feature.
He added: “Christmas continues to be a key trading season for us and this year customers definitely spread their spend throughout the festive period with a strong finish once the weather settled and the Christmas festivities started.
“The category remains very resilient and the consumer’s desire to celebrate gives us all a reason to be joyful.”
There was a good solid performance at House of Cards’ seven home counties shops, where co-owner Miles Robinson said: “We traded up by double digits which was welcome after last year’s Royal Mail debacle but, as feared, we think it has affected this year’s sales of boxed/charity packs, which were either level or only slightly up as a group.
“However, this was offset by excellent sales of singles especially from the more specialist publishers and gift-wrapping products that did very well this year.”
At Michael Apter’s trio of Paper Tiger stores in Edinburgh, it was “jingle tills, jingle tills, jingle all the way!” with his Christmas card sales well up overall, and stamp sales similarly so, and he has confidence for 2024.
Christmas was “late but great” for Caroline Ranwell at Hugs & Kisses in Tettenhall, with the shop finally “going crazy” once December arrived, and she said: “We’ll now finish the year around 3% up on last year, which I’m more than happy with.”
Caroline added that sales of Christmas card boxes were “way better than last year” and charity packs were even better: “We buy from four different companies and we’re almost sold out. That makes me happy, if I totally sell out then we didn’t have enough!
“I feel really positive about 2024, after such a great Christmas I now want to ensure that next year is even better. Shopping local really seems to be what people want. Online they may buy the big things but for cards and little gifts they like to visit their local independent retailers.”
Abi Wilson, Sainsbury’s head of buying and design celebrations, said her Christmas verdict was “positive” and they saw “growth on the year” so she’s “excited for the next year and seeing how we can go further than ever on inspiring customers through product”.
James and Paul Taylor own and run the 183-strong Cardzone group where they’ve opened 14 new stores over the past year under the Mooch name, taking it to 18 outlets, and said Christmas was “satisfactory”, while customers “didn’t buy into our in-law cards in the same way as previously” but “higher-coded cards performed well on key titles”.
The father and son duo expect to be roughly on a par with 2022, while the seasonal gift dressings performed strongly, around 10% up over the month, and they’re confident the strategy of having a stronger focus on selling through higher levels of carryover stock from previous years, and “being more sensible with initial allocations of new stock” means Cardzone enters 2024 far cleaner on Christmas carryover stocks.
For Mark Janson-Smith, md of 15-strong Postmark chain in London, Birmingham, and Glasgow, “Christmas trade was refreshingly fantastic!” with the category up around 11.5%, mainly driven by gift-wrappings.
Having doubled their store estate in the year, he said: “Like-for-like, we ended up around 13% up for December which was a huge relief as it definitely came later than normal for us this year and we were tracking down for a period. We normally have our busiest day, two Saturdays before the 24th, but had three record days in the last week this year.”
At Lark’s 14 stores in London and the home counties, co-owner Priya Aurora-Crowe had to admit it was “chaos” as she didn’t order enough festive cards “and we ran out 10 days before Christmas Day”, but it was boxed cards that did best for the business.
Over in Castlederg, Northern Ireland, Bus Stop Cards & Gifts had a steady time of it with owner Maura Quinn saying sales of single cards were “much better” than boxed cards, and charity multipacks sold better than ordinary boxes, but she admitted she’s “feeling nervous” for the new year with increase overheads and minimum wage rises, and hopes card sales will continue to rise.
Having discovered that brighter, cheerful designs fared better than the muted, gentler ones, along with open humour festive ranges, Baileys of Ainsdale owner Penny Bailey will be looking out for more in 2024.
And she added that, despite concerns over stamp prices, cost-of-living worries, and the worrying state of many parts of the world: “I was reassured that we’re doing a good job for our customers with a small, but pleasing growth of 5% across the business as a whole. All in all, I’m looking forward to 2024 – I’m actually excited to start my Christmas card buying next week!”
Headline news at Sincerely Yours in Shenfield and Hornchurch is a 12% increase on a year ago with the big winners being single cards and luxury/high-end boxes.
“I’m breathing a huge sigh of relief, as I was very anxious last January following the postal strike,” confessed owner Kaye Thurgood. “Thank you to the GCA for the #Cardmitment campaign, I truly believe this made a difference. It can be very lonely as an independent retailer, so thank you to the publishers who embraced the campaign and to my fellow indies for all the support – what a community!”
