Blue Eyed Sun

Blue Eyed Sun - gorgeous greetings cards

The Seasonal Buying Report - How Retailers Are Now Buying

The Seasonal Buying Report has been released by i2i Events, the organisers of Autumn Fair. It contains insights into retailers' changing approach to seasonal buying and shows what is needed from suppliers going forward. Here are some of the key take away points from the report:

The Changing Retail Landscape With changes in consumer behaviour, selling channels, technology and even weather patterns, 'change' has become the main constant in the last five years for retailers. This has had effects on in the card and gift market and affects both buyers and suppliers. Incidentally, the respondents to the survey were mostly independents with up to 4 shops and 43% sell greeting cards.

The Changing Retail Landscape

Retailers' Changing Approach to buying Retailers are reducing their forward ordering commitment and buying closer to seasons like Christmas and Spring occasions. Up to 24% of retailers in the survey are holding back more than 50% of their budget to buy closer to the season. This is being driven by tougher economic conditions and changing consumer behaviour. Retailers are looking for flexibility and speed which means suppliers are having to supply from closer to home. Buyers are also waiting to see what their customers are buying before repeating orders. According to the Seasonal Buying Report, the main reason to continue forward ordering is to guarantee supply of key products.

Retailers Changing Approach to Buying

The importance of Christmas Christmas has become a make or break event for many retailers with a third of respondents saying that Christmas accounted for up to 50% of their annual turnover. For 18% surveyed, Christmas is worth up to an incredible 75% of total sales. November and December account for 21% of all retail sales in the UK across all sectors. The later ordering of stock by retailers appears to be driven by consumers themselves buying later and later which makes it harder to predict sales trends.

The Importance of Christmas to Retailers

The Importance of Retail Events For most independent retailers, Mother's Day is the most important event after Christmas. Halloween continues to grow in the UK, with Tesco rating it more important than Valentines and Mother's Day. These key events offer growth opportunities for retailers.

The Importance of Key Retail Events

What Retailers are Looking at from Suppliers The retailer/supplier relationship is crucial and buyers are prepared to change suppliers to be assured of the service they require to meet these new buying patterns. That means suppliers will need to increase stock lines and manage their stock control well. Innovative, fresh new products that are well stocked will be the way forward for successful suppliers at the moment.

What Retailers Are Looking At From Suppliers

There's an interesting section at the end of the seasonal report, by Professor Joshua Bamfield of the Centre for Retail Research. He says that Halloween and the needs of children are dominating seasonal spending and this trend is set to continue. Baby showers and pregnancy related events are also growing and present opportunities for retailers. There is also a Q&A case study with a good customer of ours: House of Fraser.

It's an interesting read and rather timely for us as we revamp our warehouse in order to reduce delivery times from an average of 4.3 days turnaround. We also have a gorgeous new selection of children's cards which we launched at Harrogate and showed at Autumn Fair as well as a new Baby Shower design in our best selling Vintage range.

To download The Seasonal Buying Report click here.

To see more on Greeting Card, Stationery and Gift trends click here.