Retailers rave about the wealth of new products on offer at this year’s PG Live.
Miles Robinson, partner of House of Cards, Home Counties group of six shops
Thoughts about the show: “It was certainly a really buzzing PG Live and one of the best, that’s for sure. It was great to see so many publishers making such an effort and there was certainly no shortage of product development going on!”
What caught my eye at the show: “For us highlights were Toasted Crumpet, Lola Designs and Clear Creations. Not only for the product, but also the owners and how passionate they were about what they’re doing.
Also Tache Craft is going from strength to strength, demonstrating that it can develop from one range. Woodmansterne/The Proper Mail Company both were showing very strong offering, as was Museums and Galleries, with its new BBC Earth collection.
The embossing on Paper Salad’s new Jamboree range looked great and the Cinnamon Aitch portfolio was fantastic (we already stock the latter for seasonal but will now put it into everyday too).
On the humour side Redback continues to dominate along with Rosie Made A Thing and Cardmix. Overall though Lucilla Lavender is still the best by pocket performer we have!
Unusually for us we actually took on four new publishers at the show (and agreed terms there and then) so were looking forward to seeing what we can do over the coming weeks with these new flavours.”
Amanda and Will Oscroft, co-owners of Love It, Stamford and Bury St Edmunds
Thoughts about the show: “Coming away from PG Live this year I really felt our little industry was in a lovely bubble. Words mean so much in uncertain times and the very act of sending a card, whether its heartfelt friendship, humour or any other occasion really can inspire and make a difference.
We had ordered some new cards from Second Nature within two minutes of stepping foot in the PG Live. This seemed to set the pace of the day; full on card heaven and the ‘planned’ show budget spent within first hour!
Thank goodness for the hearty lunch and champagne at The Retas/Greats reception, which were greatly appreciated as our energy levels needed to stay high with all the beautiful stands and tempting show offers.
I particularly like the fact that there are lots of familiar faces at PG Live. Reps/agents seem to love this show too and I really like the personal attention from them as they know what ranges suit our shop.”
What caught my eye at the show: “So many of our existing suppliers, notably Wendy Jones-Blackett, Pigment, Redback, Rosie Made A Thing and Alex Clark Art had plenty of fabulous new ranges and new designs to show us. It really was exciting and it was a pleasure spending our Greats voucher with Redback on its fantastic new adult cards.
Once we made it into the Springboard section the icing on the cake for us was Bettie Confetti. Andy [Cordina, the owner] was lovely and took a lot of time with us chatting about Australia. Her cards really are hilarious, fresh and a bit rude. We spent our Silver Ticket with her.
We also opened a new account with Pippi & Me and are very pleased to say we are now the proud owner of one of the gorgeous felt animals that we won as a result of the fun promotion on the stand. I can’t wait to start selling the cards.”
Robert Petrie, owner of Kairds, Kirkwall, Orkney
Thoughts about the show: “I started off in the card business as a at the first PG Live and therefore it was really good to be there at the 10th show and at the start of my 10th year as a greeting card retailer. Being in Orkney we only see a card rep once a year and so it is necessary to attend PG Live to see what’s new on the market. I have the shop stocked with a variety of cards from all the major card companies, which are on stock control, but the customers like new cards and I always like to stock something different.”
What caught my eye at the show: “I had two special tickets to spend and I spent the first with Rush Design. I had been a customer of theirs in the past and I wanted to get some of their nice large cards for special age relation birthdays. I spent my second ticket at Tattersfield Designs as I thought the highly colourful designs were really good.
I liked a lot of the cut out 3D pop up cards on various of the stands and placed an order with Alljoy Design for some of its cards which are very different from anything I have in the shop.
I was also impressed with the Emily Kate cards with the wooden keepsake elements and placed an order for those. I also liked the quality of the English Graphics designs and placed an order for a stand with its mini cards and a selection of the normal cards with the great animal designs.
I also placed an order with Davora for its multi-cultural cards which I have kept a small stock of since I started as at is always good to be able to offer some specialist cards for the different cultures within our communities.”
