Next speed dating event is on 7 March – book now to meet key retail buyers
Getting cards in front of retailers is the key to success for publishers – and the Dragons Speed Dating sessions make it easy with a captive audience of key retail buyers.
Exclusive to GCA members, publishers are invited to the 2024 session which will be on Thursday, 7 March, at London’s Business Design Centre where John Lewis, House of Cards, Postmark and Austin & Co have already confirmed their attendance.
With spaces limited, they’ll be allocated on a first-come-first-served basis at an early bird offer of £150+vat instead of £175 with each attendee able to have a 10-minute meeting with each of three buyers – one national account, one small group and one independent.
Publishers, who can have a colleague accompanying them for an extra £30, can also submit up to three cards for each of the 18 buyers’ sample bags which they get to take away to examine in detail.
Dragons Speed Dating has been running successfully for a number of years now – 2023 saw buyers from Scribbler, Postmark, WHSmith, Stationery Supplies, Cardfactory, Diverse Brixton, Presents Sheen, Calladoodles Carshalton, Jarrold Norwich, Between The Lines, Wishlist Raynes Park, Garsons Farm, Moonpig, North London’s The Only Place For Pictures and Utility in Liverpool and Manchester take part – and to book your place, click here.
The GCA is also running a new series of Lunch-And-Learn online workshops for 2024 where members can acquire knowledge while taking a lunch break at a cost of only £20. The sessions include Business Basics, social media strategy, creating content for Instagram and reels for greeting card businesses.
And there are also the free GCA Webinars with the next one on Tuesday, 5 December, covering Preparing For Top Drawer Spring, hosted by council member and Ohh Deer co-owner and md Mark Callaby, Francesca Sequeira from Top Drawer organiser Clarion Events, and the GCA’s Adriana Lovesy, who will be joined by Kate Cowie, Director at Utility, for a retailer’s perspective. Click here to book your place.
Legal advice is available in the Protect Yourself – Do You Know The Basics? session on 14 December, click here to book, and sales will be covered by The Art File’s sales and marketing manager James Mace on 19 December, click here to book.
