Greeting Cards

I had an opportunity to see the card range in a Reject Shop earlier this week. As the photo shows, it is considerable. (Click on it for a better look.) yesterday, I checked another of their outlets. It was an equally impressive in range. While the Reject Shop attracts a specific shopper, their range position in this category is instructive as to range newsagents should consider for their businesses.

If you have not been in a Reject Shop recently, go – there is much they are getting right for the shoppers they pursue, as their strong card range shows.

I think caption range is important in maximising the card opportunity as is depth of style within caption range.

The Day Spring range of cards we have been selling for over a year now have landed a terrific niche of shoppers, which has guided us to expand our range of allied products for them. Displayed outside the card department, we are able to focus on the niche in-store as well as through social media. We have made a series of videos and posts. Some focus on individual cards, others on captions and others, like this one, on overall range.

Easter is a season beyond eggs and religious cards and gifts. It is a perfect opportunity for people to reconnect.

By broadening the focus on the Easter season inside and outside the business you broaden the customers you sound attract.

I am not suggesting you turn away from the traditional Easter. No, my advice is to run a reconnect with family and friends campaign alongside Easter, in partnership.

In-store and on social media, especially inn social media, you can use the season to remind people of your business being somewhere that can help people reconnect.

Customers focussed on the religious observances at easter and unlikely to be offeneded by an allied campaign as it broadly fits with Easter themes.

Retailers can run a traditional easter and achieve traditional results. Alternatively, they can reach beyond the traditional and, maybe, achieve better than traditional resets.

Oh, and by the way … my suggestion here does not require any capital investment.

I did a quick walk around the core card offer in my high street store and used this on social media as part of an out of store promotion on card range. I shot the video on my iPhone and used iMovie to back it with some music. Ill drop the video on social media several times as a reminder as to range and that we have new cards – to reinforce the store as a good local destination for everyday card giving occasions. I think it is critical every newsagency do this, remind shoppers of card range and pitching their business as the destination.

We place this poster pitching the 65 cent Christmas card postage price tactically in the shop to remind shoppers that cards cost less to post than usual letters.

Small reminders like this help this time of year when we have the infrequent card shopper in-store.

Better still, selling the stamps and providing a place for people to write on the cards and offering to post them helps drive an even better outcome.

Christmas card sales are strong this year. It is too early to do the year on year comparison but I am feeling good. Boxed cards have been especially strong.

This same pitch also works on social media.

We all need to do our bit to nurture card buying. Merely allocating the space in-store for card companies to stock and manage is not enough any more.

We have a few Donald Trump themes cards in-store and they are popular. The greater the fun they make of him the more popular they are. The squishy we had of Trump was popular too. Just as Trump mocks others, plenty of people enjoy mocking him … and we are happy to oblige with product.

While Kikki-k has always priced cards to appear to offer a discount, the buy 3 get 4 pitch feels new. I can’t recall seeing it before.

Of course, since they make what they sell, it is easy for them to pitch, especially so for the low cost product.

As as informed shopper, these cards are not cheap. However, I suspect most shoppers would not see it that way, they would see the p[itch as a good deal.

In my opinion, Kikki-k is like Typo, expensive, even when they do deals and run sales, very expensive for the quality of the products. That aside, they make a successful pitch, especially in the card space. Their approach at perpetual basket depth chasing offers is like what we see from the major magazine companies, especially at transit locations.

I suspect we will see more of this pricing model in our channel, too, as we deal with these nationally run competitors.

It is interesting to see placement of Christmas cards in Coles supermarkets as moves they make are thought-out, tested and made in pursuit of a revenue goal.

This photos shows one display unit of single cards placed next to tissues. Tissues are common in the weekly shopping basket I am told.

This photo shows placement of a display unit of boxed cards next to toilet paper. Toilet paper is a popular supermarket purchase.

Both photos are from he sale Coles, taken yesterday. I checked one other Coles a suburb away and found similar placements for these products.

For any retailer to achieve better results from Christmas cards this year compared to last year we need, in addition to better products, better in-store engagement and a key factor in this is our placement. In fact, I think with the same or similar cards to last year in fresh and more tactical locations could / should drive a better result.

Coles has evolved its card placement / engagement in the last year. They are more engaged with the category than before. I expect sales are up as a result.

Part of the challenge in the traditional newsagency is that cards are only in the permanent card department. That is a mistake as it only serves the destination card shopper.

What newsagents do is up to them. For me, we are playing with locations. Already, boxed cards are doing very well.

We started with a small selection of boxed Christmas cards near the entrance to the business, to introduce their availability.

Already, we are seeing hero designs emerge. As is often the case, the religious themed cards sell well early in the boxed card season.

The connection with Make A Wish is valuable as boxed card customers love the charity connection.

Our plan for boxed cards involved moving the offer every two weeks in-store and supporting this with social media promotion regularly to attract people to the shop.

While there have been some who said having Christmas cards out in August was too soon, others were relieved to find them early. Christmas cards are different to hot cross buns in that they take time to write and prepare – hence the people who appreciate accessing them early.

I have been playing with video software and made this video a few days ago to promote cards and newsXpress businesses as part of my mucking around. The reaction on social media has been terrific. It is the type of post that lends itself to people tagging friends, which extends the reach of the video and the brand it promotes.

I ran this on a few Facebook pages and in each case is resulted in terrific engagement as well as in-store mentions.

With social media content being disposable, I am not overthinking content and always look for easy to create, quick to understand and fun content. Regular fresh new content is the key here.

Our expanded range of unique Christening, Confirmation and First Communion cards is helping is attract a broader range of shoppers for these occasions. However, like all special interest cards, you only maximise success by promoting the cards outside the business. That is what we are doing with an integrated online and physical campaign where we help people connect with the religious life occasions through the sharing of a greeting card, and maybe a gift.

The range in the photo is a small part of a bigger range that is not part of the usual everyday range you see in a newsagency. This point of difference is proving to be useful.

Greeting cards is a valuable category through which to pitch the newsagency. The return form a small investment can be considerable and valuable beyond a single sale. Too often this category is left by newsagents with the expectation that cards will sell themselves or that others will attract shoppers. I think it falls to us to do this work for our own businesses. Rewards are there to earn.

Cards work at the newsagency counter, as I have mentioned here plenty of time previously. If you are not pitching cards at the counter for impulse purchase you are missing out on certain sales.

The key to success is product choice. The cards need to look unique, be easily understood and be of a type people will purchase without an immediate use in mind. Here is an example of a card that works well:

I place no more than three cards, in a purpose made stand. I don’t distract from the placement with signage. I find it is better for the cards to speak for themselves.

We have to do anything possible to get more people buying cards and people buying more cards. It is an excellent margins category that can be more valuable for us. But it needs work, by us in-store.

The impulse card unit we have at th counter is working a treat selling Mother’s Day cards for us. While then unit holds three different card designs, we often only place two so that more of the design at the back can be seen. This is key to achieving full potential of the counter unit placement.

It is a thrill selling out of Mother’s Day card designs because of this tactical shop floor engagement away from the main display.

Typo has Valentine’s Day cards at $4.99. Most cards in the seasonal range at this price point are basic in their finish / treatments. The $4.99 price point is expensive when compared to cards in newsagencies with treatments at or close to this price.

If I remember correctly, last year they had three cards at $10.00 for Valentine’s Day. There is no sign of that price offer this year at the Brisbane CBD store, the same one I visited this time last year.

It will be interesting to watch Typo, it always is. I have a feeling they are changing their approach to cards based on the Valentine’s offer and what I saw in-store.

Typo is a tough competitor for newsagents on a range of fronts: stationery, art products and cards. Any move they make is relevant to our channel and ought be interesting to us.