Growth in card sales is more up to you the retailer than it is up to the card company. This is a controversial view I know – retailers prefer to blame the card companies rather than themselves.
The best way to see if I am right is to make these 3 changes and see if they boost your card sales.
Pitch impulse purchase of cards. If all your cards are in your card department, you’re unlikely to be encouraging impulse purchase of cards.
Create a secondary placement of cards outside the card department, in a spinner or on a stand. Use something you make or source yourself so you 100% control what is on there. Place it near your main entrance. Change the cards every couple of weeks. Start with cards you love on there.
Place two or three cards at the counter. These need to be cards people will buy to have for when they might need them. Change these weekly.
Place two or three relevant cards with your gift displays.
Promote cards. Let people know what you have and why you are grateful to offer them.
Talk about cards you love on social media. One card per post. At least once a week you should have a social media post about cards.
In your front window create an attention-grabbing display promoting cards. Stop people as they walk past with a display unlike anything you’ve done before.
Run a card specific loyalty program. Buy 8 and get your 9th card free, or something along those lines. Keep it simple. Set a date. The goal is top get more people buying cards more often.
Now, here are a couple of additional moves you can make that absolutely will help increase card sales.
Ensure everyone in the shop knows how to put out new card stock and get them doing this when new stock arrives.
Place your own orders. Always have 100% control over what you do order and when. This ownership from the outset will have you more invested in card performance and that is at the core of growth in card sales.
Most of what I have listed here is NOT done by major card competitors of newsagents. Do these things and you differentiate your business and that helps you make more money from cards, for sure.