Greeting Cards

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.

Video content on social media is referenced by the platforms more than ever before, because it’s what the platform users give more eyeballs to.

This type of content is disposable, used a couple of times for the season and not after.

Here are three videos from the Christmas suite developed for newsXpress member use. First: mum and dad:

Dad cards:

Mum cards:

Videos like this are not blockbusters. They are easily locally produced for the disposable use I outline above.

In my experience, they get better engagement than flat photos of a Christmas card stand.

This is a such an easy pitchy especially on social media, especially if you are in Victoria – Christmas cards made here in Melbourne.

Aussies was to support Aussie jobs right now more than in many recent years.

Kudos to Henderson Greetings for this move, and for providing retailers with collateral to let in-store shoppers know.

While it’s early in Christmas card season for 2021, I am seeing store level data indicating considerable appeal for happy / cheerful Christmas cards ahead of the more traditional cards and even the religious cards.

Customers are commenting, too, about shopping for happy cards. In fact, it was these comments that had me take notice of the trend.

We have responded by giving the happy cards prominence in card placement, to ensure the happiness they pitch / share is seen and understood. I think this will further help sales.

We are not holding back other cards, just giving the happiness focussed cards a brighter light under which to shine.

At this time in the season, it is the religious cards tend to be leading in terms of sales. I’d note that that is the case with boxed Christmas cards.

We have had our Christmas singles out for more than. two weeks now and our boxed cards for longer. Currently, sales are more than double this time last year – and we did have stock out them for the same time as this year.

Looking at the sales of Christmas cards in your shop can guide placement decisions. There will be differences between businesses.

The Hallmark Sign & Send service offers real handwriting on a physical card posted for you. Click here for a story about it from Know Techie.

This new feature can take a lot of the hassle out of sending any kind of card to friends or family. With Sign & Send, you no longer have to browse the aisles of your local CVS to find that perfect card that you can then personalize and send on its way. Now, you can do it all from your phone, at Hallmark.com.

So how does it work? Well, it’s actually fairly simple. All you have to do is head over to the Hallmark website. From there, you can browse a variety of different cards for virtually every occasion, including birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, and many more.

Once you’ve found a card that suits your needs, you can then write a personalized message and take a picture and upload it to the Hallmark website, and the company will print your message on the card you chose. After that, Hallmark will send your card to the designated address, and your job is done!

It will be interesting to see if this US offer makes it to any other marketplaces. It would not surprise me to see it here. Their online shopping initiative has quietly launched in Australia. Their local website offers consumer direct purchasing. Hallmark is not the only card company doing this.

But, back to the Sign & Send initiative. Card companies the world over have been trying to find ways to keep shoppers engaged with sending cards. The interest in this has to have intensified through Covid and the challenges faced by some retail channels.

In our place in the greeting card supply chain, now more than ever, we have to ensure we have the best possible range of cards presented in easily browsed and bought situations. This is a product category that response to retailer in-store engagement. I mention this in case newsagents grumble about Hallmark and others making moves to better connect with shoppers. We can grow card sales. Plenty of us are, by being engaged retailers who make data driven decisions.

Over a month ago we put out a small selection of boxed Christmas cards that we had sourced to test our feeling that Christmas products would sell earlier this year.

Here is a photo from back then.

It’s been a success. Plenty of boxes of cards have been sold, along with other Christmas items that we have sourced, including decorations, soap and other Christmas gifts.

Our space and capital investment has been modest. The return on the investment has been substantial, far more than we anticipated at this point.

I know I am a broken record about this, but, Christmas has started early this year. It will run for longer. Also, it has the potential to be bigger, even in areas impacted by lockdown.

The decision by Henderson Greetings to partner with RU OK? for Father’s Day cards provides another differentiator for the business. In addition to being Australian made, which is a big plus, the charity connection makes the purchase more valuable in the minds of plenty of shoppers.

RU OK? is a respected organisation with plenty of corporate and community backing. Offering cards that raise money for the charity connects the purchase to all of the other good work and understanding out there.

We have had the range in-store for a month and shopper reaction has been terrific. People have commented about RU OK? as well as the Australian made note on the back of the cards. It is terrific when shoppers notice these differentiating points.

We are leveraging the RU OK? charity connection through social media posts and in other ways. I think with Covid impacting people and business the way it is, it is timely to make the RU OK? charity and Father’s Day connection for people.

With so much of Australia in lockdown, Father’s Day 2021 will be odd for card retailers. I suspect that it gives supermarkets an advantage. This is why newsagents need to leverage social media and other platforms for promoting easy and safe shopping for Father’s Day. It is also why the bonus of the RU OK? connection as well as the Australian made connection are important.

The easy win moves for sure are:

• Placement of Father’s Day at front of store.
• Secondary placement at the counter.
• Cards placed with easy to purchase gifts.
• Speaking to caption range on social media.
• Asking customers if they have their Father’s Day card yet.
• Connecting purchase to a loyalty reward.

Right now is the peak opportunity, especially because of the lockdown situation – people will be posting cards and gifts.

Here’s a video I published Friday last week launching a new. card display on the lease line of one of my shops. The video helped drive card shopper traffic through the weekend and early this week.

I filmed the cards on my iPhone and used a low-cost online edit tool to add text and music.

We are grateful to have had Bluey cards in-store for a few days now. Customers are loving them.

The brand is instantly recognised. We can tell based on the comments in-store as well as the comments on social media.

The launch of Bluey cards is an excellent opportunity for an off-location pitch of cards. That is, pitching cards away from their usual location in the card department. Because of the Bluey brand, shoppers are more likely to purchase multiple cards at once we think.

Now, if you are wondering why the big deal about Bluey, here is some data this morning from a commercial online search data platform I pay to access. This speaks to the extraordinary popularity of the Bluey brand in Australia, and the world, right now.

Our decision to stock Bluey and engage with the brand online was based on this evidence. Once again, data is a key driver of business decisions.

A small high street suburban newsagency for which I have seen comprehensive live data has had a good Corona. 2020 was way up over 2019. Better still is the growth in 2021 over 2020.

Working with this business, the card offer has been re-cast in terms of range, placement and in-store engagement. The sales results speak for themselves.

This data is for January through March only. The data for the two and a half months since show even better results.

I think any newsagency business in any situation can easily achieve double-digit growth in card sales. The foundation to achieving this is in your business data, not supplier data, your data. It will show you what is possible, what to do.

For the newsagency mentioned above, there has been no capital expenditure on fixtures and a reduction in capital expenditure in inventory.

The biggest barrier I see in our newsagency channel to any business and the channel overall achieving more growth from cards is lack of active engagement with the category in-store.

I and some of the newsXpress team are hosting a workshop today about cards, sharing insights from the newsXpress developed intellectual property that its the basis for card sales growth of  between 25% and 75%. 

At this free workshop, I will show you actual results, which you will be able to verify. One of our newsXpress team members will step you through the work involved to achieve the results. Often, we are achieving excellent results with no capital spend.

We will show you the most comprehensive card performance reporting you will see for any card retailer in the world. I understand that is a bold claim. Once you see what we will show, we think you will agree.

Today, June 8 @ 10:30am if you want to grow your card sales. Here is the link:

https://zoom.us/j/98961647990?pwd=cy9wdnllL1JqYlFyUDdkR1FISlFrUT09
Meeting ID: 989 6164 7990 Passcode: 519968

In the meantime, if you have questions, please email help@newsxpress.com.au.

Yes, I am a Director of newsXpress

Some of our major card companies are supporting Thinking of you week, which runs from June 20 through 27.

The goal of the week is to encourage shopper engagement with cards.

This is an easy promotion to engage with through, without having too purchase additional stock:

1. Placement of cards you love at the counter.
2. Creating a Staff Picks selection of cards for customers to see.
3. Placement of cards in an additional location near the store entrance.
4. Making cards the focus on social media leading up to and including the week.
5. Sending more cards yourself.
6. Hosting an in-store event around cards.

Cards are the best margin physical product in-store. Shining a light on the category makes good business sense.

It’s good to see the primary licence for the design, printing and distribution of Bluey greeting cards go to an Australian company.

The folks at Henderson have every right to be proud. This is a big endorsement for the company with the Bluey licence a prize I am sure many chased.

The range of cards and gift packaging are an excellent representation of the Bluey brand.

I am grateful to have seen the Bluey cards first-hand, under embargo a week ago. From the design to the production, these are good cards, really good cards. Excellent quality. Wonderful and engaging design. Themed envelopes. And, a counter unit perfect for impulse purchases.

I am sure those receiving the Bluey cards will want to keep them. I also expect some cards will be bought by collectors – not even to give.

With the cards being available in-store from mid next month, newsagents have an excellent opportunity for in-store engagement, including a launch not only of the cards but of kids items that could sell to Bluey card companies. That’s what we are planning in my own shops – an in-store event around the release of the cards.

This is an excellent mid year in-store promotion opportunity presented by the release by Henderson Greetings of the Bluey licence cards.

I am grateful for the opportunity to see seasonal cards well ahead of release. It was terrific seeing Father’s Day mid-development like I did this week.

The Father’s Day 2022 range I saw was fresh and innovative. The locally made story provides another shopper engagement reason.

What I saw for Father’s Day 2022 is on the back of similar insight opportunities for Valentine’s Day, Easter and Mother’s Day 2022. In each case it’s terrific to see seasons in development and to be able to discuss opportunities at this relatively early stage.

Small business retailers have historically been told what will happen by suppliers long after decisions are made. Thankfully, some suppliers are more engaged with indie retailers. This will benefit their sales results.

With card sales up this year, fresh designs are more important than ever, so we can all maximise the opportunities from renewed interest in the category.

FYI I have flipped and otherwise modified the image to make details less obvious to any card company competitors.

Growing card sales in newsagencies is valuable business given the margin and responsiveness of cards to  engagement.

The store for which the graph has been produced as part of a deep dive to the pocket level into card performance and done without card company engagement, has achieved excellent growth while at the same time reducing space allocated to cards and reducing the capital invested in cards. This is a win, win, win … an extraordinary result.

The key for this business has been data. Every decision has been based on evidence, data. Every decision has been subsequently tested, by data. Decisions that have not worked as well as needed have been replaced or adjusted, guided by data.

My point is, newsagents can sell more cards, make more money from cards, by leveraging their own business data.

Pitch warning. This is a newsXpress initiative. It has developed comprehensive intellectual property that leveraged data from the Tower Systems software, overlays this with pocket and caption data and then produces the most thorough card performance analysis you will find. It covers cards on the wood as well as spinners. It is fearless when considering suppliers.

The intellectual property has been tested in plenty of stores and in every single case, double digit growth in card revenue has been achieved. Oh, any double digit growth, I mean anything between 15% and 60%. Usually on the back of no additional capital investment.

I doubt a card company itself could achieve this since the analysis that feeds the business decisions I am talking about it from the store level. Card companies know what they sell in and what they take back as returns down the track. It is the over the counter sales data that is key. Also, if you have more than one card company, only your data can be useful in a whole of business view.

Card sales are up. Not just because of what I am writing about here. They are up generally because people are connecting more. Smart newsagents are leveraging this, riding the wave to maximise the opportunity its for their business.

The work behind the results I am writing about here is considerable. But so, too, is the financial reward. And, the reward travels beyond card revenue since happy card shoppers add other items to their basket in a visit. This is the icing that is so valuable.

Newsagents have the best range of Mother’s Day cards in Australia. They have the fringe captions – Nan, Nanna, like a mum, and more. It is these fringe captions that can play a role in driving growth in Mother’s Day card sales.

Fringe captions provide opportunity.

Check out your range and select fringe captioned cards, like Nan and Nanna and give them a pitch on social media.

Too often I am seeing social media posts of a full stand and while that speaks to range, it fails to entice on real specialisation. That is where pitching the fringe captions is key.

People give a social media post a couple of seconds. A photo from a distance of a range is less like to entice than a photo of a single product up close in my experience. Mother’s Day gives newsagents the opportunity for the up close single product pitch.

Australian owned greeting card company Henderson Greetings has secured the rights to the Bluey licence for greeting cards, gift wrap and gift bags.

The BBC have elected to work with Henderson Greetings as primary licensee including exclusive distribution rights amongst Australian newsagencies, dedicated greeting card retailers, department stores, kids retail and more.

This is a big deal, a big win for our channel given the Henderson focus on local retail.

A newsagent I know took control of their card sales last year, keen to grow the already substantial card revenue further.

By took control I mean that they made every purchase decision, reducing their reliance on their card company account managers. Through this process, they expanded suppliers, reduced card space by 10% and expanded locations in the store where shoppers were presented card options.

The capital investment after the changes was lower than it had been. This makes the saves growth of 50% ever more sweet.

Here’s the point I want to make … newsagents love to complain about card companies. Few want to take control themselves. It’s like they don’t want to lose the right to complain.

I can’t recall ever seeing a situation where a newsagent has invested more time in managing their cards and made less money as a result. By actively managing your cards you are certain to make more money.

Coles Supermarkets have allocated some space on their Easter card display for Mother’s Day cards in an interesting move. The photo is from my local Coles store from a week ago.

I suspect Coles buyers sought the inclusion of Mothers Day cards to try and drive return on floorspace for the floor fixture – since easter can be a soft season.