Last week I was invited to fly to Holland to speak to the Dutch Greeting Card Association about our GCA and the state of play with the UK card market. It was a fascinating trip, so I thought that I’d briefly share some of it with you.

First of all, the Dutch GCA is very different from our UK GCA which is for Publishers only and very much focussed on nurturing and supporting greeting card publishers. Theirs is a tripartate arrangement between Publishers, Retailers and the Dutch Postal Service (Post NL). Because of this set up, and the involvement of the Dutch Post, they have a lot more funding than our GCA has in the UK (even though their market is a lot smaller than ours).

The Dutch GCA does some great initiatives with this funding. For example, they have invested in a short TV series which meets people buying greeting cards in card shops and tells the stories behind why they are sending their cards. Sadly it’s not subtitled in English, but you can watch Omdat ikaan je denk (Because I’m thinking of you) by clicking here.

They also do poster campaigns and have ‘weeks of greeting cards’ initiatives where card retailer members of the Dutch GCA give away booklets of free postage stamps to customers spending more than 5 Euros in total on three greeting cards (Wenkskaarten in Dutch). These stamps are specially designed for the sales promotion and you can see them in the picture below. The booklet says ‘Your present, free postage stamps’ (Uw cadeau, Gratis postzegels).

I found my trip inspiring and would love to see initiatives like these in the UK, to boost our already successful industry going forward. We still lead the world in greeting cards, but there is always room for improvement.

To find out more about the UK’s Greeting Card Association click here.

Click here to learn about the Dutch Greeting Card Association.

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