In a double fillip for the independent card retail scene, last week saw 3 Wishes and Forget Me Not, Stubbington both open new shops in neighbouring counties.
3 Wishes opened a new specialist card shop in Broadstone,a suburb of Poole in Dorset, thereby adding a fifth store to this successful southern regional specialist group owned by Sarah and Paul Henderson.
Sarah admits that she realised she “had the bug” to expand when they missed out on buying one of M&P’ Occasions stores when it was taken over by Paul Taylor, owner of Cardzone. “I believe everything happens for a reason, so after missing out on the Locks Heath Occasions store it was a case of trying to discover why we weren’t meant to have that store and considering other options, which led us to Broadstone.”
The shop (pictured at top) opened five weeks after unit was secured, with Sarah full of praise for so many suppliers who went beyond the call of duty to ensure the shop opened a week last Saturday. “This really is a great industry to be in because of the people. The support we have received with this shop opening has been amazing,” said Sarah.
While Sarah says that the retailing climate could be easier, she and Paul expanded their retailing business “right through a recession so we are fairly confident we have a formula that works when people need to make their money stretch further.”
As she sums up: “It’s a challenging time, many prices are increasing significantly, but we are finding that because the price of everything is going up at the moment people are quite accepting of the increases in our shops. People do not stop buying cards and gifts when times are tough, they are far more likely to just adjust their spend, we think that this will bring more gift buying into the £10-£20 price bracket where most of our gifts fall. Independent card and gift shops are in the perfect position to capitalise on this opportunity.”
Meanwhile, a few days later, Louise Helyer, owner of Forget Me Not in Stubbington Green opened Lulu Loves, a stunning homewares boutique, which includes a selection of cards, in the vicinity of its long established card, gift and haberdashery store.
Lulu Loves is the culmination of an idea that Louise has been nurturing for almost four years. Tony Roberts, in one of his final roles for UKG (he joins IC&G as sales director at the start of June) did the honours, officially declaring the boutique open.
“We decided that after selling homewares and interior furnishings in Forget Me Not for a couple of years that it deserved its own space. We have waited patiently for a unit within the same location so I can be hands-on with both stores,” reveals Louise
While cards do not feature prominently in Lulu Loves there is a curated selection of birthday, wedding and new home cards to complement the homewares.
Louise is delighted by the reaction to FMN’s new sibling. “The response from our first few days was amazing and it is very humbling to have so much support from my friends, family, fellow traders and industry friends.”
She has now set her sights on a FMN rebrand at the end of the year “so it can go into 2018 looking fresh.”
