I’ve been able to look at Christmas card sales data for the first three weeks of November for ten suburban and regional newsagencies and it’s terrific to see year on year growth of 15% and more when comparing 2021 with 2019.
In the boxed Christmas card space the growth is stronger.
While this small dataset does not claim Australians are buying more Christmas cards this year, talking with regional and rural based newsagents where their reach really is only the local community, they feel people are buying more Christmas cards than usual this year.
In looking at the data, I excluded any stores that did not have Christmas singles for the entire month of November, so the data was not skewed.
I also excluded one of my own shops that offers boxed Christmas cards online. As a result of this, it’s sales are up 250%. I am shocked at the number and size of boxed Christmas card transactions. They started in September and have been strong ever since.
While there is more Christmas to come, Christmas 2021 already feels successful – that’s what plenty of retailers tell me.
This is all great news for our channel.