The continuing good weather and the imminent long summer school holidays means National Trust is braced for strong trading from its shops – and there are high hopes on the greeting card front.
“Greeting cards have always been really important for the National Trust, but the double digit increase in sales they achieved in the last year elevates their position even higher,” reveals National Trust buyer Bianca Mastrodomenico, reinforcing the significance of greeting cards for ‘the Trust’.
Greeting cards are sold in 180 of the National Trust’s shops, achieving incredible rates of sale considering that some of its sites only have a single spinner of cards and even its largest card displays do not cover all the occasions captions.
Bianca reveals that National Trust’s recent greeting card sales spurt has come from a variety of areas. “We did a greeting card selection refresh for Autumn/Winter which went down well, then had a fantastic Christmas on the card front especially on Christmas singles. Spring Seasons were good too. Having trialled Spring Seasons cards last year, we extended it this year and they performed well,” she said.
While nature-inspired designs sell well for National Trust in fact it is humorous cards that are its biggest sellers.
Bianca took over heading up the buying of greeting cards for ‘the Trust’ last September, but she is no stranger to greeting cards, having cut her teeth as assistant buyer to Claire Castle at WHSmith back in 2006.
The National Trust’s charitable status and its whole ethos were what attracted Bianca to joining the organisation in the first place.
“It is a rather lovely thought that a high percentage of the profit of from every single card sold as well as all the other products we stock is helping towards the conservation of so many special places in the UK,” says Bianca.
A full interview with Bianca Mastrodomenico on The National Trust appears in PG’s July issue.
