Going above and beyond earns Calendar Club’s supplier of the year accolade
Providing an outstanding level of service at a challenging time has earned Danilo the honour of winning Supplier Of The Year for Calendar Club.
It’s the first time the award has gone to the family-run company based in Waltham Abbey, Essex, which is Europe’s leading publisher of licensed calendars, along with greeting cards, giftwrap, gift bags and diaries.
“Our Supplier Of The Year trophy is awarded in recognition of an outstanding level of service delivered during the previous calendar selling season,” says Calendar Club buyer Rob Dand. While Rob said that there had some “genuinely tough competition”, the retailer was proud to give the award to Danilo for the first time.
“We all know how challenging the past couple of years have been for the retail sector. Against the backdrop of a global pandemic and a well-documented shipping crisis, the whole team at Danilo went above and beyond for us on a number of occasions, and the level of service we enjoyed was certainly worthy of recognition. The challenge for them will be to repeat this next year!” added Rob.
Accepting the award, Danilo managing director Daniel Prince said: “We are truly delighted to have won this award for the first time – thanks to Calendar Club and our hardworking Danilo team.
“The last 12 months have for a lot of us been the most difficult we’ve ever known, full of different challenges every day. The team at Danilo has worked extremely hard to deliver the 2022 range and I am delighted to receive this award for the business. I can honestly say this award means so much to us at Danilo. Thanks to all our suppliers, licensors and production partners, this wouldn’t have been possible without them.”
Calendar Club traded from 220 locations in UK and Ireland in the last calendar season, up from 180 stores in the previous year.
In the current edition of Progressive Calendars (to read click here), which went out with Progressive Greetings’ February edition, Calendar Club’s marketing manager Natalie Taylor revealed the retailer’s performance as well as sharing its best-selling calendars and advent titles.
“Overall, we were very happy with our store performance against budget, despite high street and shopping centre footfall being down roughly 20-25% year on year throughout our season,” commented Natalie.
“Difficult years to compare, as store numbers differed and we were closed for a number of weeks last season with the lockdown, so it was a bonus to be able to trade throughout our season without having to close our doors at different points.”
Calendar Club’s online sales didn’t disappoint either. “Online sales have been strong – down on the previous year, but dramatically higher than pre-Covid sales,” Natalie confirms.
Danilo calendars had a strong presence in the Top 10, including taking the number one spot with the officially-licensed Liverpool FC calendar.
Top: First time win for Danilo as Calendar Club’s Supplier Of The Year
