Indie retailer expansion continues and trio of stores have new owners
The expansion is continuing for greeting card and gift stores with Mooch London the latest indie to open a new outlet as it unveiled its offer in Barnes.
Glasses of bubbles and juice were raised at the latest shop when the doors opened on Saturday, 1 July, and owners Sandra O’Connell and Evelyn O’Flaherty were delighted with the reception: “Oh my, what can we say? Barnes you have blown us away with your welcome, you truly couldn’t have made our day any better, thank you so much.
“We knew that we wanted to be on another local High Street with other great independent shops and a community with a big heart. We’re absolutely thrilled to have opened to such an amazing welcome, thank you from the bottom of our hearts.”
It’s the fifth Mooch store, following on from the original at 90 Northfield Avenue, Ealing, which opened in 2016, and they now have Mooch Inside next door, plus 120 Pitshanger Lane nearby, and 666 Fulham Road.
Postmark – which yesterday, 6 July, won The Retas award for the Best Greeting Card Retailer Of The Year 2023 – has also added Glasgow to its estate with the former Paperchase store on Byres Road opening on time to take the holdings for the London-based indie retail group headed up by Mark and Leona Janson-Smith to 14 from their original six shops inside two months.
Mark said: “We’re absolutely thrilled to have found a new home on the beautiful Byres Road in Glasgow. A huge thank you to all the team who pulled this one together – we had a soft launch over the sunny late May bank holiday weekend and the welcome from the community was amazing.”
Capitalising on the demise of Paperchase, the additional Postmark stores – in Battersea Power Station, along with King’s Cross, London Bridge, Waterloo, Victoria and Birmingham train station sites, Glasgow, and with Richmond opening shortly – are jointly owned by the Janson-Smiths and the Cardzone group, part of the joint venture agreement forged with the two retail businesses in April 2021 for future stores.
In other greeting card retailer movements, three well-known stores are now under new ownership – Celebrations of Aylsham, Just Cards in St Ives, and Papilio At Heritage Thornbury.
Lisa Grand and Nicola Hartley have taken over Celebrations from Linda Bygrave, who ran the store for 15 years but decided to sell following ill health.
Linda told PG Buzz: “I shall miss the company and all the trade shows and most of all The Retas Awards – but at least I got one! The two ladies taking over I’ve known for seven years so will keep in touch with them.”
Nic and Lisa have been friends since school and met Linda through their shared interest in running and the firm friendship means they’ve even signed her up for a few shop shifts.
They both have retail experience and are looking forward to the new adventure, and Lisa explained: “Once we knew Linda was selling the shop, we put our heads together and thought this could be a great opportunity for a new and exciting challenge for us both.
“Continuing good customer care is really important to us and over time we’ll look to extend the different ranges of gifts once we get to know our customers old and new.”
At Just Cards in St Ives in Cambs, Tom and Maureen O’Connell have sold up after 23 years to move from Cambridgeshire to south Devon to finally retire and be nearer family. The new owners are locals Amanda Buttriss and Daniel Hamilton of M.A.D Retail.
“We have thoroughly enjoyed our time in the greeting card industry,” Tom said, “obviously there have been bumps in the road along the way but we’ve loved our shop and are very proud of what we achieved.”
And Papilio is still a family-owned business although the name has changed to Foxhill Café & Gifts as its now part of the Old Down and Foxhills family, which was established in 1710, following the sale by Tabi Marsh and her parents Gary and Trudie after nearly nine years in charge.
Tabi said: “I hope I’ve done Thornbury proud. It’s not been an easy time and dealing with the fire and insurance battles that finished just weeks before the first lockdown has been interesting – 70% of businesses fail with three years of a fire so I’m proud of the fact we’re still standing.
“We are so grateful to our customers, our team past and present, our suppliers, agents and fellow retailers both locally and nationally for all of your support. We couldn’t have done any of this without you and we have loved working with you and being part of your lives.
“The time has come for someone else with fresh energy to take Papilio to its next stage and weather the energy crisis and High Street building works!”
