Card Industry News

With 2020 drawing to a close, many are glad to see the back of it. It's not the first time, we've been happy to move on from a particular year. Remember 2016, when we lost a host of talent from Bowie to Sinatra to Prince? The internet was filled with memes looking forward to telling 2016 to 'do one'. After a bad run of fortune for the Royal family in 1992, the Queen famously called it an ‘annus horribilis’ meaning ‘horrible year’.

More recently, retailers were glad to leave 2019. According to the British Retail Consortium, 2019 saw the worst retail sales in 25 years. Our industry had a certain sense of cautious optimism at the start of 2020. Twelve months later, we are at the end what can only be described as an annus horribilis for the global population. The coronavirus pandemic and the health and economic shockwaves that have followed have been devastating for many.

It’s been most tough for those who’ve lost loved ones to the coronavirus. The UK has suffered  over 80,000 excess deaths with London being particularly badly hit. Those needing hospital treatments have seen increased delays. Mental health issues, particularly in children, have significantly worsened. Unemployment has increased substantially. Those in hospitality, retail & wholesale and manufacturing have been significantly hit.

Yet, despite the difficulties, it has been an incredibly special year. Many of us are closer to one another emotionally. We've spent more time on the phone, on zoom or by sending more cards. Some have found time to contribute to their communities or pursue new pastimes. We've come together on WhatsApp groups to co-ordinate support for those most vulnerable. Across the UK we applauded our NHS for all of their hard work. Scientists have worked hard to formulate vaccines to counter the virus.

There’s been an unprecedented amount of support for campaigns like #ShopLocal, #SupportLocal and #YourLocal. Many shoppers bought Christmas gifts early from independents in certain parts of the country. Whilst city centre stores have suffered from the loss of commuters who are now working from home, support has been there in other ways. Cards Galore, the GCA and many of us in the industry rallied together to campaign for government to value them as essential and keep them trading. This has been a clear signal to the politicians of the importance of card and gift shop retail to all of us.

The Job Retention Scheme and various financing options like Bounce Back Loans have been essential to the survival of many businesses in our sector, ourselves included. They were rolled out very quickly and effectively. Accountancy software companies like Sage altered their payroll solutions to make calculating and applying for the grants relatively painless.

Many of us adapted how we operate in order to cover those furloughed. A number of us worked long hours to keep things afloat. It’s inspiring to hear the stories of families coming together to help their businesses survive. A few of our retailers adapted to ‘click and collect’ and ‘local delivery’ business models via social media and kept some cash going through their tills during Lockdowns. We all discovered what is important in our lives (and businesses) and what isn’t . 

Our greeting card community has always been amazing, but we really stepped it up this year. Videos like Send a Card, Deliver a Smile by Lanther Black and the more recent Christmas collaboration by Gale Astley kept us all closer together. Raj from Davora built a fantastic new community website for the GCA. The GCA National Council has grown from strength to strength with its support of our industry. The Festive Friday and Thinking of You Week campaigns we started several years ago have gone international with the American and Australian card associations coming on board. Our CEO, Amanda Fergusson, regularly shared the positive power of greeting cards in the news. Mark Callaby from Ohh Deer and others on the council showed us all ways to support more diversity within our industry. 

It’s the way we come together and cope with the adversity that is the gift ‘bad years’ like this annus horribilis give us. No matter happens in 2021 and no matter how horrible any day, month or year is, if you look closely enough, you will find something amazing in it. And in our darkest hour, that little light can change everything.

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Despite the New Normal, “Greeting card sales are keeping us going” is the feedback I’ve recently been getting from retailers and it’s certainly true for Blue Eyed Sun of late. All things considered, our card sales have continued to be in line with forecasts and more stores have been ordering since they reopened their doors in July. Our international business and white label production has also been picking up.

Cautious Steps

Whilst it is still early days, like many fellow business owners, I have been cautious about bringing back members of the team until we are busy enough to have sufficient work for them. Our order book has picked up with several larger orders due to be delivered in the next three months and more of our team are returning part -time this month. The tricky part is trying to predict who will all be needed or not. It’s a delicate balance between keeping the company profitable and preparing for what may come, whilst taking into account seasonal fluctuations.

Matters are further complicated by one of our team retiring in October and another taking Maternity leave later in the year. With the furlough scheme ending soon decisions will have to be made by businesses across the country regarding redundancies. I’m not sure that the Chancellor’s Job Retention Bonus will be enough for many to keep staff on. If sales have reduced for a business and team members are not required, then £1,000 is not really going to alter the reality of what needs to be done.

Unless something drastically changes (and let’s face it, anything could this year), as the Job Retention Scheme ends, the UK can expect to see a wave of redundancies start soon and peak in the run up to Christmas. Regardless of the size of this wave, this will very likely affect most of our industry's Christmas sales. I think many of us are aware of this and lots of retailers have been holding back on their ordering as a result. I also suspect there will be more last minute ordering and an increase in ordering little and often as we close in on the key shopping season of the year. 

The shifts in consumer behaviour for High Street retailers cannot be ignored. Online ordering has clearly accelerated. The courier companies are a good indicator of this. Hermes, for example, are creating 10,000 new jobs. Supermarkets have also done well on cards sales during Lockdown as consumers had limited options for places to buy cards. There was a correction on multiple sales when independents reopened, so there is a still a lot of love out there for smaller retailers in their communities. The question is how can small businesses best adapt to the new normal?

Adapting

I’ve been speaking about the Digital High Street at events like Spring Fair for a number of years now, encouraging retailers to get online and to use tools like social media and email lists to boost their sales. One of the good things about the pandemic is that it forces us to make changes that we may have previously put off.

Retailers who haven’t adapted yet, still have a short window to get themselves digitally sorted for the all important Christmas shopping season. A good way to get started is to build your email list and social media following at your tills so that you can keep in contact with your customers and encourage them to engage with you both online and offline. I’d also choose simple, low-cost software like Shopify to create an online store that serves your customers’ needs.

To be fair, several of our retailers have been doing this and we regularly get requests for images and product data to help them get started. Selling online feels like a lot of work and in many ways it is. Running an e-commerce website is like setting up another business. The key difference is it can be accessed 24/7 and is not limited to one geographic location. 

We get orders from all over the world each week on our consumer website at GreenMagpie.net. The downside is, nobody knows you are online until you start driving traffic to your site. I have written whole blog posts and articles about this and I always recommend starting with your core customer base. You know who they are and can enrol them in spreading the word about your venture online.

The pandemic is forcing many of us to adapt. Blue Eyed Sun is now emailing statements instead of posting them and it’s been just as effective. We’ve also produced our last two brochures in PDF format only instead of printing them. Whilst this has been driven primarily by cost savings, we’ve found that it has enabled us to try new things. For example, our Summer 2020 Everyday Card Brochure now also has a large section organised by occasion. This mirrors our website and allows customers to choose from 24 different Baby Boy cards, for example. A printed brochure like this would be prohibitively expensive so we used to only categorise cards by range. There’s no extra cost to add a few pages digitally though, so now we can do both. 

My next project will be to automate my bank reconciliations with my Sage accounting software. I’ll also need to figure out how to sell more to retailers online to replace the new business we usually acquire at trade shows, which will inevitably have a 12-18 month hiatus. After exhibiting at over 100 trade shows we have built a sizeable email list of buyers to keep in touch with.

All of these adaptations have saved money, time and resource. They also enable us to do new things, like share our products with a wider audience. We can get our brochure out to even more people than before and they can share copies more readily with others. I’ve previously been really wary of doing this, because the card industry can assimilate artwork quickly, but this open way of selling is part of the new mode of working. It will no doubt take us to places we have not been before with our previously closed and protective approach of qualifying all prospects first.

The new safety regime is another big change that we are all having to adapt to.

Covering Up

The government recently introduced mandatory face coverings in UK stores. According to our Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, the Covid-19 related death rate of sales and retail assistants is 75% higher amongst men and 60% higher amongst women than in the general population. Retailers have gone to great lengths to reopen the stores in as safely as possible. How keen consumers will be to visit them clad in personal protective gear remains to be seen.

Personally, I am not excited about this aspect of the ‘new normal.’ On a recent visit to my hairdresser, I disliked having my temperature checked and my address details taken down. Nor did I enjoy being clad in plastic and a face mask as I sat between two vertical sheets of plastic. My hairdresser was similarly donned in plastic and wore a visor.

Aside from the huge amount of plastic waste (which is already causing more environmental issues) I miss the little things about the human interaction we usually have. The smiles, the laughter and the relaxed nature of hair cutting were all stilted by the PPE. It’s just not relaxing attire. It reeks of fear. I’ve decided to wear my hair long this year to minimise these unpleasant experience.

To my mind, the masks are likely to perpetuate this feeling. On the other hand, their use will reassure other shoppers when out and about. More importantly, they may limit the spread of Covid-19. Time will tell I guess.

Changing Times

With no more shows scheduled for this year and a load of stock to shift before Christmas, many of us will have similar challenges adapting to the new normal. We’ll also all have to have more hand sanitiser, social distancing and even PPE in our businesses. Even the layout of our workplaces will change.

On the plus side, we will discover new ways of working. New systems that are safer, more efficient and cost less. It’s the nature of this time for us to adapt. New businesses and opportunities will emerge and the new normal will create a new wave of creativity, compassion and ingenuity for us to look forward to.

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How change is the only constant to rely on

Marketing: Then vs Now

It’s a funny old world isn’t? One minute we are all sailing along doing our thing, the next the proverbial rug is completely pulled out from under our feet and life is never the same again. It seems that the only constant we can rely on is change itself. 

In April, I emailed all Blue Eyed Sun’s retailers tips for selling online and a list of useful things business owners could do during the Lockdown. It didn’t feel right to be selling to our customers and I wanted to do what little I could to support them. At the end I signed off with a reminder that “this too shall pass.” 

I’d heard the phrase in a movie and always thought it was something helpful to say when times are tough. It’s a useful reminder that nothing lasts forever. In other words, don’t stress or panic if something troubles you, because it’s not here to stay.

It’s not just difficult times that pass though, good times pass too. In fact everything is transient and nothing can be relied on with absolute certainty other than the fact that we are born and die (some challenge even these concepts with their perceptions of existence).

Good Enough Times

Feedback from many retailers at Spring Fair was that Christmas had not been too bad and a sense of measured confidence was returning to buyers. It was less a case of ‘good times’ and more a case of ‘good enough times’. 

We were aware of a ‘flu-like’ virus in China and Italy in January. The first recorded UK cases from York were four days before Spring Fair with a third in Brighton as the show closed. Nobody was worrying too much about it and many publishers and suppliers were reporting decent January and Spring Fair orders and leads. A few weeks later the UK was in Lockdown and the economy was in free fall with the wholesale and retail sector contracting by 87.3% in April. Almost two decades of UK economic growth were wiped out overnight.

The British government’s support has been well received by businesses and we were grateful for the option of furloughing our team using the Job Retention Scheme (JRS). After fifteen years of working two and a half day weeks I was suddenly grafting up to seventy hours per week to cover all the bases and keep the company shipping to customers who still needed us. 

Not so bad times

At Blue Eyed Sun we turned the taps off on all but essential supplies in order to save costs. We then watched in horror as independent card sales nose dived by 90%. The crash on giftware was even more noticeable as only a few customers with internet offerings were able to sell our reusable products. 

Our greeting card sales continued to hold up at a certain level throughout Lockdown and I’ve never felt more grateful to have an established core of best selling cards that people still love to buy. Our online retailers were smashing it out of the park and one of our designs in particular was repeatedly being ordered in the hundreds.

Despite brokers shutting down for a few weeks, they were quickly back up and running and having diversified card distribution in supermarkets really helped us survive April and May, along with some white label business we have internationally. Things were undoubtedly bad during this time, but they weren’t terrible. We could find ways to survive by using what we had and focusing on what was working.

The main issue is cashflow. When you have a huge amount of stock and it’s not flowing, but you still have bills to pay it can drive you crazy. Whilst I’m not suggesting one be flippant about these things, worrying about them isn’t necessarily helpful. A certain sense of detachment is more powerful than being caught up in negative thinking and anxiety.

The present

I found that it’s better to stay present with what is and not add anything to it. Sales dropped by 90%, most customers were not buying nor able to buy. Some were. Most customers were paying, some weren’t. Our income was covering outgoings to keep our suppliers paid. We had options for deferring Tax and VAT, the Job Retention Scheme and a Bounce Back Loan. These are the facts of what happened and actions we could take. “It’s a nightmare, it’s stressful, I can’t cope,” are what we can often add to what is. They are stories that distort the truth of our experience.

The present moment is actually as safe as any. If you stop right now and take a deep slow breath in and a long steady breath out and sit with what is for you right now, you will see that everything is actually OK. It’s our fears and anxiety about what is to come that tend to undo us. We load them onto the facts and weigh ourselves down with the worry they induce.

Looking Back from Perfect

In 2004 I did an exercise called ‘Looking Back from Perfect’ that changed my life. It’s what helped us to grow and run Blue Eyed Sun on two and half days per week for so long. I’ve used it many times to achieve my goals.

Jakki Brown and I were chatting about the exercise during Lockdown and she pointed out that things don’t always end up ‘perfect’. She’s absolutely right, bad weather can destroy or hamper your livelihood and it’s not something we can control. The coronavirus and its impact on our businesses is far from ‘perfect.’’ Covid-19 meant I found myself working 70 hour weeks to survive, which is not the goal I set for myself all those years ago.

We can’t predict everything that happens to us and why would we ever want to? It’s part of the rich tapestry of life that our experiences are varied and ephemeral. Despite doing this exercise, did my life work out perfectly? Hell no. There have been ups and downs, triumphs and disasters, massive mistakes and fortuitous wins.

Still, we can keep aiming for where we want to get to and adapt to our environment as we go. We can change our ambitions and create new possibilities. We can create reasonable projections and track what works and what doesn’t. So far, so good with the cashflow forecasts I put in place in March. All sales have fallen in line with or exceeded expectations. We’re still hugely reliant on our customers paying their bills, which for the most part, I  am very grateful to say they are.

The New Normal

I’ve learned a lot about our business during Lockdown as I went back to doing most jobs I did when we started up. Many new ones I had to learn on the fly. Fortunately my team had created helpful ‘how to’ manuals that got me through it. I managed ten weeks on my own and then brought back our first staff member at the start of June with more to follow as business picks up. Improvements are being made from the things I learned in the warehouse, doing our book keeping and processing our orders.

Blue Eyed Sun continued to provide a reasonable service to the majority of our customers throughout the pandemic with the main issue being the courier companies struggling with service levels. Parcel volumes have reportedly been like ‘Black Friday’ every day. With the rest of the shops now re-opened and increasing courier capacity this will rectify itself soon enough.

 Things have definitely shifted and last month saw order volumes quadruple at Blue Eyed Sun on the previous month. My counterparts in Germany, Spain and Switzerland have seen strong bounce backs in their retail markets and I think we can expect to see continued lift in the UK too.

Our expectations shouldn’t be fully relied on though, the ride will inevitably be bumpy from time to time. We have to deal with things as we find them and not as we hope they might be. Stay lean, stay adaptable and look for the opportunities as you go. Remember that, whether it’s good or bad, this too shall pass.

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What was hot at Spring Fair 2020

Wow. It’s the end of the second decade of the new millennium and almost 20 years since Blue Eyed Sun launched. It’s also been 100 years since the GCA launched. It’s been a busy year full of new learnings and shifts in perspective. Here are some of them:

Success and Failure

Until recently, I used to get very attached to winning or losing. I believed that if you weren’t attached it meant that you weren’t really committed. It’s been a major shift for me to pull attachment and and commitment apart from one another and enjoy being committed without being attached.

For example, sometimes it’s simply enough to complete the Brighton marathon (as I did in April), rather than worry about my finish-time. For most marathon runners, completing the course is the triumph, the speed at which it is done is less relevant. 

Having said that, it was incredible to see Eliud Kipchoge become the first to run a marathon in less than two hours this year. To do this, he had to run 100m in 17.08 seconds 422 times in a row at a speed of 13.1 mph. Try and run a single 100m in 17 seconds and you’ll see just how remarkable this achievement really is.

Instead of being attached, I am now committed to things I’m doing that may move forward and may not. This year, some worked and some didn’t. Some just where what they were. I got that I got and I didn’t get what I didn’t get.

What Worked

Our financial year ended with Blue Eyed Sun sales up 30% thanks to our best-selling BambooCup and new eco-gifts. In the current climate this feels like an achievement in itself. The brand has been further boosted further by a recent independent study by Stiftung Warentest that showed BambooCup by chic.mic to be was the number one choice out of twelve popular bamboo cup brands. 

Our new card range, licensed from Jade Mosinski has been very well received and is selling through nicely. We are also pleased with the response to our Doodle Girl licensed cards. 

This year we expanded our sales agent force to thirteen agents on the road with only Wales left to cover. It’s a challenging time to find good agents and we are very grateful to have some of the best in the UK doing a great job for us.

I also took part in Plastic Free July for the first time and spoke about my experience at Autumn Fair. It was a fascinating challenge, which I shared with my followers on social media through a series of videos. Sustainability and taking care of the environment is becoming increasingly important for all of us.

What Didn’t Work

Despite being runner up for a Gift of the Year award with Origamo cards at Spring Fair, we did not progress with distributing the handmade Italian popup and quilling card brand as the business model did not work for us.

For different reasons, new interiors products W-Lamp and Canvas Gallery both failed to take with our customer base. I’m glad that we limited our exposure and didn't have large stock holdings on these products. We were able to test and move on from them without it damaging us in any major way.

For all of us in business, we have to try things and see what works and what doesn’t. Whilst we all want the outcomes to be good, it’s important to be assessing and adjusting regularly to sail through the current choppy climate.

The other thing that I’ve realised doesn’t work for me is…

Trying to Look Good

This year I learned that I used to do a lot of things to ‘look good.’ Trying to look good comes at a cost, as it’s difficult to say no. Which means one can over-commit and not have much free time to oneself.

Being so busy also means that I don’t always come up smelling of roses, because I inevitably let people down from time to time. For example, I filmed the speakers at the GCA Speed Dating with Dragons event earlier this year and it has taken me many months to edit and load the footage up to YouTube.

So, I’ve cut back. I recently stepped down as Treasurer of the GCA and, after 15 years of speaking at the Ladder Club, I chose not to attend this November. It was scheduled on my birthday and on a Thursday when I spend time with my son. As much as I love helping others, it felt good to do what I wanted and focus on what’s important to me, rather than how I think others might perceive me. 

After filming, editing and loading up twenty six videos for the GCA’s YouTube channel, I have decided not to do any more. The association now needs someone to help them with these, so if you know anyone who can film, edit and load onto YouTube then please drop Amanda Ferguson a line.

We’ve also had a couple of things come to an end this year at Blue Eyed Sun.

Endings

A decade after launching, we have now closed our wedding division, Ivy Ellen. During that time, we created 117,251 gorgeous wedding invitations for 2,019 weddings and won several awards whilst building a well loved and recognised brand in another lovely industry. It’s been a blast and now we want to focus on other things.

After 16 wonderful years our long standing colleague and friend, Lewis Early, is moving to new pastures. During his time with us he worked his way up our business from packing boxes in our warehouse at the tender age of 16 to becoming our invaluable General Manager. He has lived and breathed Blue Eyed Sun with us and we will all miss him greatly and wish him all the best.

New Beginnings

Rising Retail was launched this year and the date has been shifted to the 1st June 2020 to allow more retailers to get the most of this TED style networking event, with 14 incredible speakers, designed to share best practice and help businesses to thrive. It’s still being held at the Shard and promises to be an awesome day.

At Spring Fair we are all being moved into Hall 2. I’m excited about Blue Eyed Sun’s new stand and, after the success of our move at Autumn Fair, am looking forward to similarly strong results with this change. I will also be speaking about Sustainability in Retail on the Inspiring Retail stage at the NEC.

We’re looking forward to launching our new Bioloco brand of environmentally friendly products. We have some lovely new double walled water bottles that have tested really well. These will be a good compliment to our best-selling BambooCups, lunch boxes, children’s beakers and SlideCups. We are also expanding our greeting cards offering, particularly with our Jade Mosinski license, which will soon be over 100 beautiful designs. 

The Future

This year, the EU voted overwhelmingly in favour for a new law to dramatically reduce the 150,000 tonnes of plastic waste tossed into European waters each year. Single-use plastic cutlery, cotton buds, straws and stirrers are to be banned by 2021. Oxo-degradable plastics and food containers and expanded polystyrene cups will be banned. There will also be a more stringent ‘polluter pays’ principle and 90% collection rates for plastic bottles are being targeted by 2029. The legislation stipulates that labelling on the negative environmental impact of littering of single-use plastic cups and other items should be mandatory. Despite Brexit, the UK will undoubtedly follow a similar line regardless of who wins the forthcoming election.

This is fantastic news for anyone operating in the environmentally conscious space and helping consumers to cut back on their consumer waste by encouraging the use of reusable bags, containers, cups and bottles.

It also means that the card industry’s drive to reduce plastic could not have come at a better time. Around 68% of all cards sold in the UK are expected to be naked by next month.  We believe more will follow as the customers of independent retailers begin to reward those that make plastic-free changes.

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What I learned doing the Plastic Free July Challenge this year

Jeremy Corner and Lewis Early collecting an award for Ivy Ellen, which is now closed.

For over thirty years greeting card publishers have been proactive with ensuring the board they use comes from sustainable sources that are, in a sense, farmed crops of trees that are replanted in forests that are managed mindfully. FSC and PEFC accreditation both provide reassurance of this for consumers. 

With the wide spread consumer backlash against plastic, many publishers and retailers alike have been unsure how best to proceed. As with climate change, some are still in denial about whether a problem even exists or anything needs to be done at all. Plastics and micro-plastics do damage our environment, harm wildlife and pollute the food chain.

The 90% drop in single-use carrier bags clearly demonstrates that the seven major supermarkets take the majority of consumer single-use plastic and it’s here that the biggest wins can and are being made. With most of nationals going naked with their cards, cello wrapped cards will soon account for less than a third of all UK greeting card sales.

Not all retailers want unwrapped cards though, as many worry about damaged stock, which is also wasteful and environmentally unfriendly. For publishers, handling two different sets of wrapped and unwrapped cards is problematic as it essentially doubles stock holdings and ties up cash. The over riding concern, is that people give up on sending cards altogether. 

The way it was

Traditionally cards were sold unwrapped with the envelopes sitting separately behind the cards in the card pocket in store racks. You selected your card and grabbed an envelope. If the envelopes were missing, you could borrow one from a nearby pocket. Well merchandised displays meant that cards and envelopes were quickly and easily replaced. You still see this set up in stores like WH Smiths.

As more specialist cards came into the market and the diversity of retailers grew, wrapping in polypropylene grew in popularity because it’s transparent, protects cards, gives a feeling of ‘newness’ and keeps specialist envelopes with their cards.

Plastic Alternatives

Previously seen as signifier of ‘newness’, plastic is now starting to be seen as a signifier of ‘environmental damage’. Many consumers are beginning to demand change. In certain instances, where the cards are intricate and may be damaged if they are not wrapped we are seeing a distinction being made between necessary and unnecessary plastic wrapping. Some publishers have opted for ‘topless’ cello bags that don’t have the extra fold nor the plastic ‘peel and seal’ strips attached to them.

There are alternatives like oxo-degradable plastics and plant based PLA (polylactic acid). The former, which have been found to break down into environmentally damaging micro-plastics, are set to be eliminated by the end of next year. PLA is growing in popularity as it is biodegradable in the right composting conditions. 

Compostable materials have a recycling problem though. We don’t have the infrastructure in place to handle identification and separation, so both PLA and PP are being combusted or going to landfill where the conditions aren’t suitable for composting. Because of the current structure of local government responsibility for waste, long investment time frames for new systems and lack of infrastructure for dealing with either type of film, the general advice is to return to publishing cards without film packaging.

Pushing the Envelope

There’s also the issue of envelopes being separated from cards. Not a massive problem when envelopes were mostly the same sort of quality and size. Lately, some publishers have pushed the proverbial to create more special envelopes costing more to produce. It’s not hard to envisage publishers with beautiful envelopes having to merchandise more often than others because theirs get half inched by consumers wanting something nicer. 

With the need to keep envelopes together with cards and to keep displays looking more tidy, a variety of approaches have been taken so far. Museums and Galleries developed their ecoBand packaging for their BBC Earth licensed range of cards. Caroline Gardner have created an InFold, which is affixed to the envelope and card on the reverse using a plastic-free peelable label. Both companies have patents pending on their systems.

Woodmansterne have developed their own peelable label system, Smart Seal, with innovative printers, Windles, who have also launched their own commercial version called Kard Klasp. Woodmansterne, who handle greeting card brokerage for John Lewis, have led the charge on committing to the peelable label solution and have supported other publishers needing advice to make the change. Their Director of Operations, Adam Osborne, shared his learnings at our recent GCA AGM and spent a good deal of time helping me with information for this article.

Not every labelling solution appears to be working ‘snag free’ yet. If any publisher cuts corners by using a poor quality label that damages the consumer’s purchase, then it won’t be long before all labels are viewed with suspicion causing an insidious problem for all card sales over time.

Labels haven’t been problem free either. There are early reports of a few being ripped by shoppers wanting to see inside the card. Plus, they are printed on silicone coated glassine based rolls of tape that (like baking paper) you cannot recycle at home. Release paper like this can be recycled commercially. Woodmansterne have recently developed a stronger seal and are conducting trials on a new way to apply Smart Seal, allowing the card to be opened.

Labels

For those that are making the shift to label clasps, it is very important that the correct adhesive is used. It needs to hold to the board and envelope well enough so it does its job of keeping envelope and card together. It also needs to be easy for consumers to peel off and not damage the product in the process. Ultra low tack options apparently work best. Cards printed on lick coated boards with harder, less waxy inks, UV inks, along with more drying time all work well with the right labels.

Some adhesives react with the ink or varnish or sealant combination on the board. Some leave traces of adhesive on the board or pull bits of it off. If you imagine just 5 different label types, 5 boards and 5 inks, you have 125 combination variations. With so many different combinations available, the quickest and simplest solution is for publishers to use the tried and tested solutions on offer. These have been extensively tested on a variety of boards, coatings, inks, and so on. It is mind boggling the level of detail they have gone into to create these labels. Age testing, pressure tests and environmental impact are just some examples.

The aforementioned labels are long horizontal strips that wrap around the front and back of the card. Some, like Louise Tiler and James Ellis, have gone for wider labels with a greater surface area of attachment. Aside from Windles, other label suppliers worth talking to include Wrapid, Loxelys, Olympus Print Group and Label Express.

How to Apply

For those switching over to attaching labels, you can either apply them by hand or source a machine to help. Woodmansterne use a bench top ALS 4310 machine which, after being slightly modified by ALS, can label up 1,800 cards per hour. The cost of the machine is £6,000 and operator training time is negligible. It is ideal for embossed cards or those with embellishments as they don’t go through any belt feeders. You can also buy manual labelling dispensers from office Depot for as little as £30 that can label up to 300 cards per hour. Useful if you work with outworkers or don’t have access to capital to finance an ALS machine. Make sure you build a jig or template so that the label goes on straight every time.

After this publishers can also purchase a paper bander which can band 25 batches of six cards per minute meaning you can ditch your plastic outer bags that group the cards in sixes. Prices start from £3.5k from a cheap Akebono to £5k for a fast, reliable bench-top version from Jenton or ATS Tanner. Alternatively you can apply these by hand.

With Greta Thunberg and Extinction Rebellion dominating our headlines this year, it’s easy to see that the world is demanding that we take better care of issues affecting our environment. With the law soon to be introducing Extended Producer Responsibility schemes (essentially meaning the polluter pays), now is the time to act. Before it’s too late.

How we can all help fight the War on Plastic

What I learned taking part in Plastic Free July

How to Adapt to the Rise of the Ethical Consumer

Read more on Cello Bags in this 2014 blog post

This year the Greeting Card Association celebrates its 100th Anniversary, so I thought I’d take a look at the last ten decades of card sending. You can see even more at the GCA AGM this month.

A brief history

The custom of sending cards can be traced back to the ancient Chinese who sent one another New Year greetings. The early Egyptians exchanged goodwill messages on papyrus. Handmade paper Valentine messages were sent in Europe from the early 15th Century.

Henry Cole, a founding director of the V&A in London, sent the first Christmas card in 1843. The reform of the Royal Mail in 1940 made postage more accessible after a charge of one penny (roughly £1 in today’s money) was set for carriage and delivery of cards between any two places in the UK irrespective of distance.

The GCA

As postal services and the custom of greeting card sending grew, it took another 76 years for the emerging industry to officially form its trade body. The Greeting Card Association (GCA) was created just after the first Word War in 1919 to protect and promote card sending. 

Here are some examples of cards published in each of the last ten decades since it was formed:

Regent Cat card (1920's), Hallmark Mickey Mouse Card (1930's) and Cowboy Card (1940's).

Twenties

Thanks to Geoff Sanderson, who has helped to create card images dating right back to the first decade of the GCA’s inception. It seems that pre-internet cat selfies still stole the show when it came to cute sentiments. It’s interesting to see the Regent Series branding on the front. The card is embossed around the edges and the colour palette is limited, perhaps due to the printing processes available at the time. 

Thirties

Hallmark was Disney’s first licensee and this 1932 Mickey Mouse card shows how quickly the infamous mouse spread across the planet after his creation in 1928. This card also suggested that card shops were becoming a thing. The palette is limited to two colours and it appears that cute and humorous cards crossed over to adults. 

Forties

Many of the greeting cards during this period came from America, with American Greetings (est 1906) and Hallmark (est 1910) leading the charge. This cowboy card shows the American style and the evolving colours and techniques like die-cutting. Notice the feather used to create a sense of added value and ‘specialness’. 

An Engagement card with satin cushion from Kaye (1958) and cute wedding card from Waldorf (1958).

Fifties

Danielle, one of our team members at Blue Eyed Sun, unearthed a treasure trove of cards dating back to the fifties in her loft, including her mum and dad’s engagement and wedding cards from 1958. Their engagement card from their parents was published by Kaye and has a satin cushion on the front, with verse inside. There’s also a cute wedding day card from Waldorf, which is foiled and embossed.

The cards from the fifties are mostly lighterweight papers folded over (refered to as a French fold) to create the feeling of weight. They have foiling, embossing, die-cuts and ‘wordy’ sentiment inside them. Some have ribbon. Brands include Kaye Gibson, Waldorf, A.M. Davis & Co, Envoy, Diplomat, Forget-Me-Not and Sharpe’s Classic. 

21st card by Kaye (1962), flocked Baby Girl card by Rust craft (1961) and Baby Boy card by Academy (1964).

Sixties

Danny’s sixties cards also used die-stamping, flocking and flittering. They’re still mostly paper folded in half, which allowed four colour imagery to appear on the inside of the card with only one side of the overall sheet being printed on.

Danny’s mum, Pam’s 21st card from her sister Carol, was published by Kaye Gibson. It’s foiled and embossed with lace detailing added to the right hand edge and a die-cut gold key attached to the front with a ribbon. 

A card by Rustcraft to Pam on Danny’s birth is die-cut and flocked. There’s a nice baby boy card from Academy on the birth of Danny’s brother, Ricky. In addition to previous brands mentioned there were also cards by Image Arts, Gibson and Delightful.

Mother's Day die cut card by Hollie Hobbie for Celebration Arts and Bonie Bonnets card by Raphael Tuck.

Seventies

Danny loves cute cards and the birthday cards she chose for her mum feature cartoon hedgehogs, kitten, puppies and cherubs. There’s a nice die-cut, pop-up Mother’s Day card featuring Holly Hobbie from Celebration Arts, plus a cute Bonnie Bonnets card by Raphael Tuck.

The boards are heavier (280gsm plus) and most of the cards are gloss finished, brighter and more colourful than previous decades. Many are larger in size too. Brands from this decade include Creative Cards, Forget Me Not and Sharpe’s Classic.

Hallmark's Country Companions range, Friends Like Us puppy by Carlton and kitten by Creative Cards

Eighties

The cards get even cuter in the eighties, like the cute puppy the Friends like Us range published by Carlton under the Forget Me Not brand. There are a couple of cute Country Companions hedgehog designs (first published under Gordon Fraser and then acquired by Hallmark in the late 80s).

Other brands include Lucie Attwell, Heron Arts, Riviera (Carlton Cards), Gibson Greetings and early Andrew Brownsword.

Forever Friends Cards and cherub from Cherish the Thoughts range in the Brownsword Collection.

Nineties

It’s impossible to talk about cards in the nineties without mentioning Forever Friends and Andrew Brownsword. This brand served to establish cute as a strong adult category (note that these examples are for Mum and Nanna). The inside of the Mum cards reads: “It’s a hug in an envelope.” The cherub card is from Andrew’s Cherish the Thought Range. 

Interestingly, the Brownsword Collection card states on the back that the cards are made from managed forests that are replenished with new trees. The Friends Like Us range mentioned earlier has a similar message. It’s great to see this environmental message on cards is over 30 years old. 

For the last two decades I thought I’d talk a little bit about Blue Eyed Sun cards…

Glass Enamels (2001), Suncatchers (2003) and Kaleidoscope (2006) cards by Blue Eyed Sun.

Noughties

In 2000, Blue Eyed Sun launched its first range of Glass Enamel cards on the market at Top Drawer (the one in May that became Pulse). They were an instant hit as nobody made anything quite like them. Hugely time consuming to hand fire in hot kilns, they were a niche product that got us noticed and garnered our first Henries awards nomination in 2001. One of the original designs even made its way into the V&A archive collection. 

In 2003, we added our Suncatchers range, which included pieces of hand-painted resin that you could hang on your Christmas tree or in your window. We won a Gift of the Year award for Best Design-Led Cards that year. A host of other ranges followed, including our hand-glittered Kaleidoscope cards, which still sell internationally. Eventually, we built up enough profit to move away from using generic card blanks onto which we affixed our motifs onto our first litho printed ranges. 

Danny joined our team from Woolworths in 2008.

Vintage (2012), Jingles (2011) and Jade Mosinski (2019) cards by Blue Eyed Sun.

Teens

We’ve launched a large number of different ranges over the years. Not all have been successful, but we’ve always managed to keep pushing until we found what worked. In 2011 we had our first cold foiled range, Jingles, which we licensed onto almost 100 gift products. Our biggest range to date has been Vintage, which caught the huge ‘make do and mend’ trend, and still makes up 25% of our sales. Despite numerous look-a-likes I feel they still are the nicest ‘stitched’ designs around and look like real fabric has been attached to the cards.

The future

Our 2020 vision includes lots of lovely cards by new designers like Jade Mosinski and more exciting licences, as well as a determined focus to cut single-use plastics and be even more environmentally friendly than we currently already are.

It’s amazing seeing our lives mapped out through the cards we send one another. Not just those of the people who buy them and receive them, there’s all of the thousands of people involved in creating, publishing, distributing, retailing and mailing them. Who knows where this wonderful tradition of reaching out to one another will be in another hundred years? Hopefully, people will still delight in pulling out their greeting card memories and enjoying them once more.

Attend the GCA AGM 2019 and hear more about the history of cards

Click here to see what's new from Blue Eyed Sun

I recently met up with an experienced retailer friend of mine. I love seeing him as we both enjoy shooting the breeze about business and life. I also value his good honest feedback about our business. We were discussing the blind spot in the Johari Window (things that we don’t know we don’t know) when he said something to me shook me to my core. “You are not a greeting card publisher, Jeremy. You are just a guy who has helped his talented partner along their way.”

I flinched when he said it. It came out of the blue and I recoiled as if to avoid it, whilst at the same time knowing, on some level, that there was truth in what he said. It amuses me to think that Blue Eyed Sun has come so far without me being a greeting card publisher, but that could well be the truth. And if it’s the truth for me, it could also be the truth for a huge number of others in our industry. 

That’s not just for publishers by the way, but retailers too. Another industry friend regularly points out that there are a huge number of amateurs in retail. If you don’t know what your best sellers are, who your most profitable customers are and which products generate your biggest profits then you may well be one of them.

What my friend meant is that I hadn't targeted gaps in the market and filled them with appropriate offerings. It appears that one is somehow able to stumble along into something that appears to be success, but has an inherent flaw hidden from one's view. Like a mirage that you believe to be true. The truth is I haven't developed, created or produced successful greeting card ranges. My good fortune may have been down to luck, fortuitous timing and the talents of others. It would appear that, contrary to my previous understanding, I may not be a greeting card publisher after all.

What to Do

It’s easy to hear something about yourself like this and feel defensive or angry. Especially after years of hard work in your business and industry. I believe that feelings are like metal detectors for hidden gold. If you feel a reaction then there is work for you to do around those feelings and treasure to be liberated from the muck. 

Blue Eyed Sun has been reliant on the talent of one remarkable designer for many years. Part of the reason I knew that my friend was right is the fact that I have repeatedly tried and failed to create ranges with other designers. They have all bombed. It’s not like the business is complete crap either though. We have built something quite remarkable with our blood, sweat and countless tears. So I don't feel like I am an imposter, but I can see what my friend was getting at.

The first thing I decided to do was to take stock of the value within our business. These are other truths that can keep one from jumping off a cliff, when the rug is seemingly pulled out from under your feet by the reality of your blind spot that you have previously been unable to see.

Our Value 

Blue Eyed Sun has built a widely established brand presence within the trade marketplace, painstakingly forged over nearly two decades. We are well known within the industry, with years of coverage in hundreds of magazine articles, many award nominations (even some wins), a well-read industry blog and a solid presence at the UK’s leading trade shows.

We have excellent distribution across the UK having built and maintained good relationships with the majority of the leading greeting card retailers. Our wonderful team of experienced sales agents across the UK are well regarded and active in their territories. We’ve also gathered years of experience working with most of the brokers who tap into areas of the market not normally accessed by smaller publishers.

We have excellent international presence in over twenty countries. In 2016 we won the Queen’s Award for International Trade on the back of our successful expansion abroad with a fantastic network of top distributors around the world. Some pretty amazing companies have won the Queen's Award, so it's something special to be included amongst them.

We also own a well run manufacturing and distribution centre in Sussex, which has the capacity to hand-finish and distribute a huge volume of greeting cards a year giving us control over quality and efficiency. Last, but by no means least, we have an awesome in-house team that operate this facility. They are a loyal, hard working, customer focused group of individuals who have produced and delivered millions of handmade cards over the years.

My Value

Whilst Blue Eyed Sun is a pretty good business, it appears to have one major weakness from a greeting card publishing point of view: me. 

Again, it’s not like I’m complete crap either. I am strong on bringing people together. I have a sense of humour. I’m good with people. I can lead. I am a great story teller. I can write. I can develop and grow brands. I am a strong marketeer. I am good at seeing the bigger picture and creating effective systems (the business was grown with me working part-time since 2004). I’m creative, adaptable, forward thinking and empathetic. I have grit, determination and focus. I'm also a survivor and a fighter (who happens to also love greeting cards).

I’m weaker on the details. I hate forms and bureaucracy. I’m bored by the mundane and by repetitiveness. I’m best kept away from running things that are everyday or I can disrupt them to make them more interesting (the opposite of what’s needed). I have also been a people pleaser in the past. Something which gets in the way of developing great product. You need to feedback the truth if product is to be developed into anything good.

I believe that people are most valuable when playing to their strengths. That’s what I’ve always tried to do within our team. It’s more efficient, less arduous and most likely to result in mastery. Focusing on fixing weaknesses, on the other hand, is a constant uphill battle. It can feel demoralising and is most likely doomed to failure in the long run anyway.

The big question is whether or not me ‘not really being a greeting card publisher’ is a weakness that is going to be difficult or impossible to fix or whether it’s something I can remedy by where I focus my attention. 

Holding Back

One of the things that has been both Blue Eyed’ Sun’s strength and weakness over the years has been our reliance on one designer. I always saw this a bottle neck within the business that prevented us from growing further.

This was further exacerbated by a classic conundrum within most small businesses: You need to grow, but you are way too busy to hire and delegate to anyone else. Plus, there’s the added risk that trying to do so and failing will waste more time that could have been spent doing the thing you do that adds most value to the business. 

What if I’m the bottleneck within our business though? If I‘ve never shown up within our business as a greeting card publisher then that is a bigger issue than our designer not training and delegating to others. And how on earth did this happen?

The legacy of this issue is rooted in the way I always saw my role, as one of support and encouragement. It’s a safe place to be. The one behind the talent. You never have to expose yourself to criticism and failure (two difficult pills for people pleasers to swallow). The downside is you never fully explore your own talents, because you are always focused on those of the other.

Moving Forward

This past year I have been experimenting with different business models and partnerships. I know that we have everything we need in terms of infrastructure to take great product to market. The sensational success of BambooCup is evidence of this as we’ve seen double digit growth at Blue Eyed Sun in the last twelve months. So, we have solid operational foundations from which to launch new products and projects.

My next step is to find people who are weak in these areas and strong in areas where I am weaker. I am on the hunt for more talented designers and more awesome product on which we can work our marketing and distribution magic. I’m interested in licensing, partnerships, distribution deals and working together with businesses with fantastic potential for growth that struggle to cope with things that we do with ease.

I am not interested in any weak product (cards or gifts that don’t sell because the designs don’t work or they’re overpriced). There’s got to be love in the product. I may not be a greeting card publisher yet, but I do know business. Both myself and Blue Eyed Sun are valuable assets for any team and we’re looking for other solid players to build even stronger teams.

Drop me a line if you have something exciting that you’d like to discuss with us. Watch this space for interesting new projects over the coming months. I am grateful to my friend for helping me to see into my blind spot. Now I need to act on it and see what happens. For now I am a story teller and, who knows, one day I may become a greeting card publisher too.

The Hidden Value of Feedback

The Secret to creating Best Selling Cards

The Importance of Taking on New Challenges

Along with many other areas of our industry, trade shows took a hammering last year. There’s been speculation on some closing down, Pulse has merged into Top Drawer and others are shadows of their former selves.

I’ve personally exhibited at over 100 shows and last year, on the back of a huge surge in interest in eco-friendly products, Blue Eyed Sun was seen with our BambooCups and greeting cards at ten trade shows in total. We had one of our most successful years ever and had several record breaking shows along with an incredible number of enquiries and new accounts. Unfortunately, it’s not been like this for everyone and, for many, the card market has not been without its challenges of late.

The format of trade shows hasn’t been radically disrupted yet. Whilst there have been an increase in Meet the Buyer events organised by associations like the GCA (Greeting Card Association) and the GA (Giftware Association), the niche PG Live show is probably the closest we’ve seen to disruption so far. For all their faults, there are still some things about trade shows that work well, some things that don’t and some that are just plain ugly.

The Good 

There’s no substitute for face to face meetings for retailers to get a sense of a supplier and vice versa. A place where you can get your hands on the products and feel the quality of them. This has proved especially true for our launch of BambooCup, which feels so good to the touch. It’s always been true for our greeting cards too, which look way better in the flesh than in a brochure or online. 

There’s also something very efficient about being able see lots of great product from a huge variety of suppliers in one place over one short period of time. Its useful for buyers and suppliers to be reassured that the people they are about to do business with are credible. You can get a lot of this through the subtle nuances of the behaviour of the people on the stand, how the products are displayed and how well it is attended by other buyers. If a company cares, it shows at shows.

In fact, I’d go so far as to say that just being at shows is a big part of showing the marketplace how much suppliers care about their business, the industry and their customers. We all know what a lot of effort and expense they are and there’s a certain sense of commitment you get when you see publishers and suppliers regularly attending trade shows. Shows are also great for following trends, learning about the marketplace and networking in general.

What I love most about shows is the chance to see lots of reactions in one go. To have hundreds of conversations about what we do well and what we do badly. This is hugely valuable marketing information that helps us get a sense of where to adapt and improve going forward. With the best agents and reps in the world you don’t always get the full picture without shows.

It’s obviously incredibly exciting when you get it right and can feel completely demoralising when you get it wrong. That’s business for all of us thought, right? We don’t always get it right, but shows do make it easier to give us a better idea of what is going to work and what isn’t, whether we are suppliers or retailers.

The Bad

For retailers there’s lots of walking with many miles to cover, especially at large shows. For suppliers, there’s lots of standing, which can also be hard on the legs. It’s tough being in a quiet spot of a show or on a small stand that might get missed. If you’re an established player, it’s hard when retailers skip out on your stand to find new suppliers as they feel they can catch up with you or your sales agent another time.

It’s also bad when your marketing doesn’t hit the spot or worse when you don’t market at all and rely on the show to bring the business to you. One thing I’ve learnt about doing shows is that they are always improved by a strong combination of direct mail, PR, advertising, calling our customers, social media posts and email marketing.

Similarly for retailers, if you don’t do you homework and hunt through your mail, your emails, your trade mags and show websites you can miss new treasures. You can also miss out if you don’t know your best sellers and make a note of what stock you are low on in store. Being organised prior to visiting shows can make the world of difference to your bottom line.

Then there’s the bad food. To be fair it’s not all shows that suffer from this. I love eating from the Crussh concession at Olympia and the lunch at PG Live is not to be sneezed at. It’s the NEC that still seems to struggle with it’s food offering, despite having tarted its restaurants up in recent times. Eating healthily and well at shows is always a challenge.

The Ugly

Horrible shows are kind of like bad days in a retail store. No one wants them, they sometimes just happen. Since I started exhibiting, we’ve been at shows immediately after 9/11, mad cow and foot and mouth outbreaks, halls being flooded, fires and even snow storms. As one would expect, they were all ugly. You can’t always control the outside world and yet, if you’re not in the game, you can’t expect to win. Like everything in business, you pays your money and takes your chances. That doesn’t stop the experiences being ugly from time to time.

Sometimes it’s not out of your control. It’s just down to the way a market sector works. For example, we’ve never exhibited at Glee before with cards. That’s because most of the good independents go to other shows and a large section of that market is dominated by brokerage. This year, we thought we’d try it as BambooCup had been going very well in garden centres and gift products don’t tend to be brokered. 

The result? My word it was ugly. An absolute stinker (our first time there and our worst ever trade show to date - in a year of record breakers). With hardly any visitors in our aisle we could tell it wasn’t going well on the first day. We tried to see if the organiser would include us in their daily email shot to salvage what we could of the show. No help from them. So two of our team sat it out over four long days doing what they could with what few visitors walked by. Boy do those days seem long when it’s quiet at a show.

Fortunately our horrid experience at Glee was salvaged by our best ever Autumn Fair and a decent enough showing at Top Drawer Autumn (on at the same time).

The Future

If you’re going to do well at shows as a supplier you have to keep developing and launching new product. It’s the number one thing buyers ask for at shows. Everybody is always moving forward. Getting the newness right is a challenge and I think it’s best faced by trying lots of new things.

Which is what Blue Eyed Sun is doing at Spring Fair 2019. We have a new larger stand at the front of Hall 4 where we will be showing off new greeting card ranges, new eco-friendly bamboo products from chic.mic and our exciting new handmade quilling and popup card ranges from Italian sensation Origamo, which include a fantastic range of Disney licensed products. We even have small new ranges of framed prints and table lamps on display.

As for the shows, they have to keep focussed on what buyers and suppliers most need: Introducing high quality suppliers with great innovative product to leading retailers that can bring their new products to the high street. The key is to make sure this is done in as cost effective way for everyone as possible.

As long as it remains important for people to meet in person and for great products, companies and people to meet in person trade shows that have the right offering for their customers will remain in business.

Jeremy will be speaking on the Main Stage at Spring Fair on Sunday 3rd February at 13:15 on the Rise of the Ethical Consumer and adapting to the Growth of the Green Economy.

Click here to find out more about Jeremy's talk at Spring Fair

How to make the most of trade shows

Are trade shows still worth it?

See us at Spring Fair 2019

Last month I had an ‘experience.’ It was fun, exciting, inspiring and adventurous. It was sexy too and stimulated my imagination. It gave me everything I wanted and more. It opened my eyes to new possibilities. Before you ask, no, it wasn’t that. It was something quite different, although we I may blush a little when I share some of my customer experience in a retail store with you.

As modern retail adapts and evolves, one key area of focus is the 'customer experience.’ John Lewis launched its tech incubator J-Lab to find new was of improving the experience of the in-store shopper as a way of retaining customers and drawing them in to spend more. Last year they trialled an after hours ‘private shopping’ service at their Cheltenham store, where anyone spending £10,000 or more could have the entire store to themselves. 

My experience was slightly less glamorous, but totally unforgettable. It started on a day out in Camden, which I have not visited for many years. The area attract 28 million tourists a year and the labyrinth of shops and stalls is a retail experience in itself. Wandering around Camden Market and particularly the Stables Market with its ornate wooden doors and equine effigies was an adventure and full of interesting things to buy and eat. It started when a friend coaxed me through a shop entrance flanked by two giant metal robots, with a silver sign above the door that read Cyber Dog.

Cyber Dog

Greeting us with a friendly smile as we entered was a girl dressed in cyber goth attire that was a cross between Blade Runner and a Japanese manga creation. In fact most of the store assistants were spectacularly dressed and made up in bright neons, facial piercings, tattoos and futuristic haircuts. 

The heavy bass of dance music reverberated throughout the store which looked like a spaceship with life size cyborgs and silver robots in cryogenic pods high up on the walls. At the far end of the ground floor an escalator took us down into the bowels of what felt more like a night club than a shop. 

As we descended the beat got louder and the lighting darker. Everything was bathed in ultra violet light to show off the fluorescent garments and items available to purchase for your next big club night. At the far end of the cavernous underground space, with his booth up on stage and backlit by bright neon stripes, a DJ hunched over the decks with his headphones propped over one ear.

The basement was made up of different caves to explore. It reminded me of nights out at the End or Fabric in London back in the day. It was fun being in this shop. Things got even more interesting as I scuttled nervously through the adult section and emerged the other side only to turn an even darker shade of crimson when I spotted a woman pole dancing on a small stage in the corner. It caught me by surprise. I grabbed the nearest item to me and headed for the tills. It turned out to be fluorescent yellow thong. “For a friend,” I gabbled at the assistant.

I later discovered that there are other platforms in the shop where clubbers dressed in store gear are hired to dance above the customers. Aside from my dubious shopping choice, the experience was unlike anything I’d seen before - and this from someone who spent a year of his life partying I mean studying on exchange in Amsterdam.

What impressed me most was that Cyber Dog understands what it is, understands its customers and goes all in on their commitment to provide them with a retail experience unlike any other. 

Translating the Experience

So what can we learn from this experience that can be used in other retail stores?

Your High Street

Councils and city planners can definitely do more to encourage fun shopping areas like Camden that are filled with independents, have atmosphere and draw tourists in. The Shambles in York and the North Laines in Brighton both attract bring shoppers from miles around for the experience. Encourage yours to do the same.

You can work together with other local retailers to create events like the Christmas light experience in Holt or late shopping hours on certain occasions, like House of Cards and other retailers on St Mary’s Street in Wallingford do. 

Window Displays

Lights and window displays are a great experience for customers. Gorgeous Hair Boutique in Hove has the tiniest shop with the most incredible window displays. I’m sure customers love seeing them and talking about them. Christmas windows at Selfridges have attracted visitors for years. The next part of their experience is entering the shop.

In Store

What does it feel like for customers when they walk into your store? Are they greeted by a staff member at the door? How does the store look from where they are standing? What are the sights, sounds and smells? How do the staff appear? What are they wearing? Is it in keeping with your brand? Do they smile or are they on the phone or gossiping?

Are there any demonstrations in store? You don’t have to have your team pole dancing in a corner to generate interest, there are plenty of other ideas you can put in place. Christmas gift wrapping classes, greeting card personalisation or even calligraphy demonstrations are a few I know of.

What is the layout like for your shop? Are the shop fittings tired and worn out or are they inviting and enticing. One of the loveliest shop fits I’ve seen is Arrowsmiths in Broadstairs, where the owner was smart enough to keep the Victorian wooden glass cabinet displays fitted by the chemist that first opened the shop. You can put anything anywhere in that store and it looks good.

The Oyster Gallery in Mumbles zones their two upstairs rooms by colour and the rooms are laid out like dining rooms filled with products. Organising the colours like this helps customers to imagine how the products might all look and work together to create a feeling.

The late Lynn Tait always invested heavily in a Santa’s Grotto experience at the Lynn Tait Gallery for the children of Leigh-On-Sea. The kids had a wonderful experience and the parents spent money in the shop. 

Senses and Feelings

What sort of music do you play in store? Is it the right experience for your brand? What about smells? Cafes in shops have a head start on others, but there are oil burners with pleasant fragrances that can have positive effects on the experience customers have of your shop.

Even the things you say have an effect. A reminder that the customer has made a lovely choice helps to alleviate buyer’s angst. Even asking the customer if they found everything they were looking for today adds to the sense of a helpful experience and can increase sales.

You might think you are already doing a great job, but ask yourself if there is anything extra special you would do if Tom Cruise’s rep called you to say Tom wants to visit your store. How would you make his experience incredible? Free coffee? Private shopping? A free gift wrap service? As marketing expert Geoff Ramm says, “create OMG experiences for your customers.” And as I always say, “Make them shareable.”

Are you Shareable?

When customers love the experience you give them, they want to share it with others, so make it easy for them too tag you and drive virtual footfall to you by setting printing your social media accounts on your till receipts, bags, etc. Don’t just put the Instagram logo, make it easy for them by using your @handle. Use calls to action that tell customers why they should follow you on Instagram.

Change is Coming 

There is undoubtedly a shift happening towards experience over products. Millennials are said to treasure experience over things, we are all conscious that the we are consuming more resources than our planet can handle. Our abundance of stuff is causing us stress and there is a growing trend towards minimalism. With it is an awakening of consciousness where many are discovering that our happiness and the happiness of those around us does not come down to material goods. By creating incredible retail experiences and selling useful products that people want to buy, use and keep, change is an experience that we can all look forward to.

How to Future Proof Your Retail Business

Seven Habits of Highly Effective Retailers

The Importance of Brand Story for your Business

Dubbed “The Blue Planet Effect” shocking images of vast swathes of rubbish in our oceans in David Attenborough’s documentary aired on the BBC appear to have galvanised millions of viewers to take action in the war on single-use plastic.

The Queen has announced a ban on single use plastics on the Royal Estate, both the BBC and Sky have pledged to eliminate them by 2020 and communities up and down the UK are planning to go plastic free.

I spoke about this trend to retailers at Autumn Fair. The environment and socially conscious living are at the forefront of the minds of the biggest wave of consumers to walk the planet: Millennials. 

Millennials

With £4.4 trillion in earnings, millennials have more spending power than any previous generation. When it comes to traditional media like TV, radio or newspapers consumption is down by half, with most choosing to learn about the world via their mobile devices.

They research products carefully and spend more freely when they choose to do so. They value authenticity in brands and retailers and will shun those they find disingenuous. They are obsessed with health, wellness and travel. Most importantly they have a passion for the environment.

Part of the reason Blue Planet has resonated so deeply is how shareable clips of it have been online. Waking us all up to the effect our mindless waste is having on our world. Particularly plastic and why it is so problematic.

Plastic Population

Plastic bottles can take 450 years to break down, plastic bags are even worse. Packaging and cups made from styrofoam may be around forever (Americans currently use 25 billion of them a year). Single use coffee cups made from paper have plastic linings and 2.5 billion of them go into landfill each year in the UK (100 billion globally). There’s half a trillion single use plastic bottles produced in the world annually. We send 6 billion of them per annum to UK landfill sites.

Plastic is everywhere 72% of European tap water is contaminated by microplastics. It’s pretty much impossible not to find them in the food we prepare in our homes and in the fish and meat we buy at the supermarket. Even the clothes we wear affect our environment. A typical polyester fleece, for example, sheds 250,000 micro plastics in it’s lifetime. Much of which is washed out to sea. So much so that there is now more plastic in the ocean than fish. 

Plastic Problems

Plastic are polymers derived from hydrocarbons which are mostly derived from oil. Oil is effectively made from the hundred million year old corpses of living things that came before us. Microplastics attract organic pollutants and then contaminate our food chain causing both animals and humans a host of health problems.

BPA and Estrogenic chemicals in plastics have been linked to health issues like heart disease, hormone imbalance, increased caner risks, infertility, ADHD and even genital deformaties.

What can we do?

It’s not just Millennials that were affected by the images from Blue Planet, most of us want to do our bit too. There are four simple steps that we can all take to reduce the plastic we use in our lives.

1. Refuse

You can refuse unnecessary plastic packaging.The biggest one in our daily lives is food packaging. Plastic food packaging increased by 25% between 2004-14 using 800,000 tonnes pa only a third of which is recycled. Feedback to your supermarket that you don’t want it and choose fruit and veg that isn’t wrapped in plastic. 

Share excessive packaging photos on social media to get companies to take action and make change. If you are company that people are doing this to then engage with them and take action. Talk through what is needed and how you can change.

Some independent shops are now refusing to stock plastic bags. Even changing a single word at checkout can help customers to change. A retailer told me recently that they stopped saying “do you want a plastic bag” and asked instead “do you need a plastic bag.” The result was a huge drop off in single use plastic bags taken by customers.

If you can’t eliminate plastic in your life then the next step is to reduce it.

2. Reduce

Laminate or cello glaze is not recyclable so try to reduce your use of them. The biggest source of this in most of our lives are Tetra Pak cartons which are laminated in polyethylene and contain a layer of aluminium which makes them difficult and costly to recycle. Most councils don’t take them at the moment. You can reduce your consumption of liquids using Tetra Paks or find alternative sources. 

Glass milk bottles are on the rise again because of this trend. Similarly, SodaStream is seeing an uplift in sales as people reduce buying carbonated water in plastic bottles and make their own at home.

The card industry is making real progress on reducing plastic packaging with trials in supermarkets selling ‘naked cards.’ Asda is removing cello wrapping from the vast majority of its cards and will save over 50 million cello bags annually equivalent to 100 tonnes of plastic. Unless the card requires a bag to protect delicate handcrafted elements it makes sense to reduce the reliance on cellos or shift to greener alternatives.

3. Reuse

It helps to reuse materials repeatedly, rather than discard them after a single use like we do so often after one use. That’s why it’s nice to enjoy your birthday cards or Christmas cards up around the house and even hold on to ones that have special meaning for you. 

It’s the reusability that has a significant impact on single use items we get through everyday like plastic bottles, coffee cups and plastic shopping bags. Actively reusing reusable water bottles, reusable coffee cups and reusable shopping bags are small changes in habits that have a big effect when we all get involved and do our bit. There are fantastic commercial opportunities for retailers stocking these reusable products at the moment.

You can also get involved at work by reusing items whenever possible. For example, we reuse pallets and cardboard boxes when shipping from Blue Eyed Sun. This little shifts all help to reduce waste. Share this with your customers and shout about it on social media.

4. Recycle

When it’s not recycled the plastic we use is either going into landfill and breaking down over hundreds of years or gets into the environment and winds up in the sea. It is estimated that we are effectively dumping a lorry load of plastic into the ocean every single minute.

We need to recycle all of our plastic both at home and in the office. Councils don’t currently recycle polypropylene film so compostable bags could be a better solution, especially if we can get all councils to make industrial composting more accessible for consumers. Greeting cards themselves are an easy material to recycle as the majority are made from paper which is recyclable.

Make sure you use your recycling bins at home and at work and encourage others to do so. If you are passionate about the environment recycling is a really important way to improve things. Small changes have a huge effect over time.

What to do Next?

Build environmental awareness and sustainability into your business. Take action, join the conversation and get involved. There are beach clean ups across the country you can join. Take little steps towards improving every month.

One way to do this right now is to book your place at the GCA AGM on 17th October at Knebworth House. Sue Morrish from Glebe Cottage (aka the Eco-friendly Card Co) and Ceri Stirland from UKG will be discussing the card industry’s environmental issues and options open to publishers and retailers. You’ll have a chance to get involved and learn what’s best for your business as well as benefitting from all the other talks and seminars on the day. I look forward to seeing you there.

Global waste produced whilst you read this blog post:

3,350 plastic straws, 19 million plastic bags, 10 million plastic bottles, 41 tonnes of nappies, 10 lorry loads of plastic dumped in the sea - all of which take hundreds of years to break down.

Read more about Business and the Environment

Find out more about our Bamboo Products

How to change your habits for good

Click on the image below to see the slides from my talk at Autumn Fair: