In an extroardinary result, Mother’s Day card sales were up 39% year on year in one of my newsagencies. This wonderful sales growth is reported across most Mother’s Day card captions. I note that we only have Hallmark cards in this newsagency so it really is a like for like comparison.
Mother’s Day gifts were up as well, well over double last year thanks to better buying and better displays.
Looking at the last two weeks, Mother’s Day cards accounted for 47% of call cards sold.
Overall traffic in the newsagency for the same period is static between the years.
The other interesting data is the boost in magazine sales. I have no doubt that many mums opened gifts on Sunday which included magazines. Newsagencies are the perfect place to drive sales of magazines as gifts.
It’s terrific having the sales data so close to the end of the season.
Greeting cards were up for us as well, just over 20% in our case. However gifts were static and D Lea was static too. D Lea Mums Day Bags were about 30% down, while cheaper boxed chocs were up.
My reading of all this is that the customers were more cautious with their spend, and while mums got a card, some mums did not get as bigger gift as previously.
V pleased with the 20% increase in cards though.
Great news Bruce. Our gift sales were through the roof because we took a different approach and it paid off.